SIX LEARNED and godly Sermons: Preached Some of them before the Kings majesty, some before queen Elizabeth.  
By RICHARD EEDES, Doctor of divinity, dean of the Cathedrall Church of Worcester, and Chaplen in ordinary to them both.  
LONDON, Printed by Adam Islip, for Edward Bishop. 1604.   

To the Reader.  
I Haue presumed to offer unto the eye of the world, Sermons preached in the ear of the Court, without his leave J confess, whose labours they were; but not without hope of thankes from thee and pardon from him. The copies, which were some of them commanded, some of them entreated from him, are a warrant unto me, that the Court which heard them, will be willing to red them: neither do J see how I wrong him, when I publish no more, then was Publici juris, as soon as it was uttered: I am sure I haue satisfied the desires of many, and those of better iudgement then myself, who in my hearing haue wished the publishing of them, and thought them worthy of longer life, then to fade with the hour to the which they were dedicated. If thou profit by them, thank God for him, and as for me, I shall think my pains rewarded, if according to thy acquaintance and credit with him, thou wilt assure him, that this which is done, is done  
By a true lover of his gifts and thy good.   

❧ The duty of a King, preached before the Kings majesty in two Sermons: the former at Hampton Court the 9. of August; the later, at Wilton, near salisbury, the 30. of August, in his ordinary attendance for that month.  Michah. 6.8. 
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee; surely to do justly, and to love mercy, and to humble thyself to walk with thy God.  

THis office of an ambassador from the prince of princes, to the which for some yeares I haue ben employed in this Court, under the religious reign of the peerless queen of the world, my many ways most gracious lady and mistris: and to the which I am now again called in this change( as I may well say) without change; a change of the person, but not of the blood royal; a change of the governor, but not of the Religion and government of the land: as it hath no liberty to go either beyond or against, or beside the commission of him whose ambassage it is; so is it the more worthy of audience, because when other princes by their ambassadors do chiefly, if not onely, seek their own good, treat of peace but for an advantage to war, and many times( as one noteth) Vix exiccata papiro incipiunt contra venire, devise occasions of quarrel, before the written articles of agreement be thoroughly dry: Hec legatio qua pro Christo fungimur: 
2. Cor. 5.20.  this, in the which it pleaseth God to use our ministery, doth wholly intend the good of those princes to whom we are sent, and hath an end to make them not only good Christians( which yet is and ought to be more unto them than all the kingdoms of the world) but good kings also, as by the which they are rightly taught, to haue manus ad clauum, oculos ad astra, their hands at the stern, and their eyes in heaven; yea so to guide the helm of their civil government, as they are guided and directed by the rule of heaven. For howsoever the politicians of this world do not spare to make a division, yea a divorce between these duties; as if they who are to take laws for the salvation of their souls, were to be laws unto themselves for the government of their people; and thereby flatter princes, that they own no service unto God, but within his sanctuary, as being gods themselves in the other parts of their territories: yet doth the Prophet in this place teach them a far other lesson, who pleading the Lords quarrel with the mountaines & mighty foundations of the earth, 
Mich. 6.2.  that is, the rulers and princes of the people, 
Vers. 10.11.  for the Treasures of wickedness in their houses, and the balances of deceit in their hands: and having touched their hearts with such a remorse and conscience of their evil ways, that they were careful to pacify the Lord with burnt offerings, to please him with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand riuers of oil; yea, to give their first born for their transgression, and the fruit of their body for the sin of ther soul, as we see in the words next before: in this verse concludeth, that neither Sacrifices are acceptable where the dueties of Iustice and mercy are neglected; neither yet the dueties of Iustice and Mercy truly performed but when Men humble themselves to walk with their God. There is no true wisdom but from above, he hath shewed; to the very gods of the earth, yet as to men that shall die, He hath shewed unto thee o man; not that it is in thee to make things good or evil, as if nothing were good but in opinion, but what is good in itself, He hath shewed unto thee, o man, what is good: and because in thy corrupt nature, thou lovest not that which is to be beloved for itself, good, unless it be commanded and made thy duty, He hath shewed unto thee, o man, what it good, and what the Lord requireth of thee; not that thou owest him no more than the service of some certain daies in the week, or at the most, than these religious offices which are concluded within the walls of his sanctuary, as if in civil affairs thou wert left to be a law unto thyself, or at the least to laws of thine own making; but the good which he hath shewed, & the duty which as the Lord he hath required, stretcheth so far as to that life of civil society to do justly; not in any such extremity, as to turn Iudgement into wormwood. Amos. 5.7. but withall to love mercy, and so to haue both thy Iustice and thy mercy seasoned with true religion and unfeigned holinesse, that being rooted in humility, thou mayest spring and grow up in that fruit of sanctification, to walk with thy God: for thy instruction he hath shewed in the frailty of thy condition, to thee o man; what is good for thy election: and what the Lord requireth of thee, by way of commanding thy affection: namely, To do justly, as being to live in a society, To love mercy, as being to live in a society of men, To humble thyself to walk with thy God, as being to live in a society of Christian men, which are called to the service of the living God.  
And first for instruction, whether may we go, but to the fountain of wisdom; I say not for those high mysteries of his spiritual worship only, concerning which we may red even in the book of nature, that he who hath made all things of nothing, is to bee worshipped for his power; hath made all that he hath made good, & for our good, is to be worshipped with love; hath made and disposed all things in such wisdom, as that no one thing can be better or so well devised, is to be worshipped after his own maner: but even for those other parts of our duty, our living soberly and justly in this present world, for that word whereby he hath revealed unto the world his will: and which is & ought to be no less the law of laws, and the rule of rules, than he himself the Lord of lords, and the King of kings: though it principally intend the high and supernatural mysteries of that saving health, which the reason of the natural man cannot conceive or attain unto: yet is it given, as the Apostle speaketh, by inspiration of God, not onely to teach truth, and to improve falsehood, for matters, of faith; but also to correct wickedness, and to instruct in righteousness for matters of life, that the man of God may be absolute, being made perfect unto all good works. 2. Tim. 3.16. and 17. Indeed the rule, as of natural agents, so of reasonable creatures, is in this all one, that they are to take laws for their actions and doing, from that power in whom they live and move, and haue their being, 
Act. 17.28.  that since all things were created by him and for him, and consist in him. Coloss. 1.16: all things be referred to him who worketh all things according to his will, or rather as the Apostle speaketh 〈◇〉, according to the law and counsel of his will. Eph. 1.11. And therefore as we see in natural agents( whether they be to bear rule, as the Sun and moon which are placed in the firmament, or to be ruled, as the elements and parts of this lower world) that they work as if they knew what they worked, and in their several courses perform his will, as if they were acquainted with his will; and further, that in a relation which they haue one to another, as sociable parts of the whole body of the world, they carry themselves, as if they were bound to serve one anothers good, and all to prefer the good of the whole, before whatsoever their own particular; insomuch, as things heavy by nature, will sometime of their own accord mount upward, and forsake the centre of the earth, which to them is most natural; as if they heard the voice of God commanding them to let go their private good, to reliue the distress of nature in common: so doth it much more concern those his creatures, whom he hath made in a manner partakers of the divine nature, and endowed with reasonable souls, to understand both his will and the reason of his will, that they harken to his voice, 
Hebr. 3.15.  that his word be a law, and his will a bridle to thier wils, not onely in their private duties, but much more in those public offices which are for the common good of civil society. For when they who haue most, either of wisdom or authority, haue no more than they haue received. 1. Cor. 4.7. and received as Talents vpon an account. Mat. 25.19. an account to him who accepteth not the persons of princes. job. 34.19. but will rent their kingdom, who divide his service. 1. King. 11, 12. As on the other side, he will honour them that honor him. 1. Sam. 2.30: What are the highest places, but obligations of the greatest duties? which the very gods of the earth owe to him, who iudgeth among the gods. Psal. 82.1? What prerogative hath the Cedar above the thistle, he that sitteth vpon the throne, above him that grindeth at the mill; 
Exod. 11.5.  but greater necessity do depend vpon God, both for advice in wisdom, & assistance in power to so high a calling? The very power of man is weakness in comparison of his power, who hath chosen the weak things of the world to confounded the mighty. The wisdom of the world is foolishness in comparison of his wisdom, who hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confounded the wise. 1. Cor. 1.27: And therefore when it cannot be denied which we red Prou. 8.15. that by me kings reign, which proveth no power to be absolute; and by me the Iudges of the earth decree Iustice, which proveth all laws to be derived from his: how can it but be a conclusion without exception, which the Prophet hath, Hier. 9.23, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the mighty man in his power, but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me? For the wisdom of man, to speak the best of it, is but Docta ignorantia, a learned kind of ignorance, which yet being bridled and guided by the spirit of God, may be wrought, as one noteth, to speak like the ass of Balaam, to good purpose. Yea that power which the Poets give to humane wisdom in the fable of Amphion, that it drew rude and ignorant men to civil society, as it were stones and trees to the building of Thebes; is onely true of that heavenly wisdom, which is indeed able even of stones to raise sons unto Abraham, 
Mat 3.9. Dan. 2.14.  and not onely to plant kingdoms, and establish commonweals; but also to blow down as it were with Trumpets the walls of Hiericho; 
josh. 6.20.  whatsoever policy shall any way be advanced against the societies which are of God. And this in effect, do they confess even against themselves; who are recorded by their wisdom to haue been the first founders of States, and the first inuentours of laws among the heathen; in that they feigned themselves to haue received their laws from some one or other of their false Gods; as Zoroaster, who gave laws to the Persians from Horomasis; Zamolxis who gave laws to the scythians from Vesta; Trismegistus who gave laws to the egyptians from mercury; Charondas who gave laws to the Carthaginians from Saturne; Minos who gave laws to them of Creet, from jupiter; Licurgus who gave laws to the Lacedemonians from Apollo; Draco and Solon who gave laws to the Athenians from Minerua; Numa Pompilius who gave laws to the romans, from Aegeria; as if even with them law were no law, unless it had a foundation in religion, and an authority from God. Although in this, as in most of their inventions, what are they but the schollers of Moyses? of whom wee haue good eiudence that he received that Law, which is the ground of all laws, from God himself, and from whom there are ancient writers who charge all others to haue borrowed what soever they haue either Good in their laws, or True in their philosophy; insomuch as they call Plato the Moses of Athens; and Basil taxeth the devill as a thief of the truth in that he had decked his crows with her feathers: yea, Saint Augustine thinketh it most meet that we take from them as from unjust possessors whatsoever Truth they any way withhold, as the Apostle speaketh, in unrighteousness; 
Rom. 1.18.  and not onely ascribe all truth to the true author thereof, God himself; but also because, Primus discendi ardour est nobilitas magistri; the best spur to learning, is the worth of the master, think nothing so well taught, as that which he hath shewed. The rather, because he hath vouchsafed to show it unto thee o man: for what is man? or the son of man? that when it were happiness enough for him, to find truth even with seeking; truth itself should seek him and be found of them that seek her not. Es. 65.1. that the Creator should woe the creature with the word of life, and by his ministery travail as it were in Birth until the truth of Christ be formed in him: 
Gala 4.19.  that the work of recreation or regeneration should bee of greater power than the work of creation, and it more unto him to make a man righteous, than to make a man. Yet such is and hath been the riches of his love, that when man by nature doth dig for knowledge in profundo sine fundo, in a bottomless bottom; accuse nature with Theophrastus for giuing Vitam breuem artem longam, a short life in a long way to learning; and in the end attain to no other perfection than that of negatives, rather to know what the truth is not, than what it is; 
Hebr. 1.1.  he hath at sundry times and in diuers manners delivered to the world that affirmative truth, which is onely able to save the soul, onely able to content and satisfy the mind of man. wherein whether by man we understand magistrate, as the circumstances of the place do plainly imply, and the scriptures elsewhere speak, as Genes. 26.7. where by the men of Gerar which examined Isaac concerning his wife, are meant such men, as had public authority to examine causes; and Genes. 43.11. where the sons of jacob are willed to bring the man of egypt( indeed joseph the ruler of egypt) a present; by occasion of which and the like places the learned gather job, who is called a man of Hus, to haue been a man of great authority in the land of Hus: or, whether we understand it naturally of the frailty of man his condition; it yeeldeth both ways doctrine of good use. First, that they whose promotion cometh neither from the East nor from the West, nor from the South, but from God. Psal. 73.6. knowing their power to be of God. Rom. 13.1. and their judgements to be God his judgements. Deut. 1.17. and therefore, that they who resist them, not onely by a consequence resist the ordinance of God. Rom. 13.2. but God in them, as he  told Samuel: Non te reiecerunt said me, They haue not rejected thee, but me. 1. Sam. 8.7. make the fear of the Lord the beginning of their wisdom. Psal. 111.10. the statutes of God their study, and his commandements their counsellors. Ps. 119.24. that Kings above others be wise, and the Iudges of the earth learned. Psal. 2.10. that with david they prefer a day in God his Court before thousands elsewhere. Psal. 84.10; with Moses esteem the rebuk of Christ greater riches than the treasures of egypt, Heb. 11.25; and with that good emperor Theodosius account it more honour to be Membrum ecclesiae, than Caput imperij, a seruant of God, than lord of the world; yea, that if they live in so corrupt times, as that in may seem an evil thing to serve the Lord, they put on that resolution of Ioshua, 
josh. 24.15.  Let others take their wages, but I & my house will serve the Lord. Secondly, that when they know themselves, though to be gods among men, yet to be gods, that shall die like men. Psal. 82.7; that in their purple they cloth but dust and ashes; in thier delicate fare, they feed but worms; and in their greatest greatness are but virtus in infirmitate, power in weakness, the weak instruments of God his power: they presume not of themselves, as of themselves, to use authority: as if it were their own, to boast with her, Es. 47.8; for the time present, I am and none else: and for the time to come, I shall be for ever: but rather be still wakened with that watchword of Philip, Remember thyself to be a man: and a man so much the more weak, by how much the more exalted, if the spirit of grace be not doubled vpon thee: and that even when thou givest iudgement vpon others, iudgement doth wait at the door for thee. Which though it be a matter of great difficulty for the Monarchs of the world when they haue, as Daniel describeth them, 
Dan. 2.32.  heads of gold, arms and breasts of silver, belly and thighs of brass, and legs of iron, still to be thinking on their feet of earth, yet are they indeed greater than themselves, when they forget their own greatness. Neither is there any praise of a prince beyond that which Plinie giveth trajan, 
Plinius in Paneg.  Vnum ill se ex nobis & hoc magis excellit atque eminet quod vnum ex nobis putat, nec minus hominem se quam hominibus praeesse meminit: he esteemeth himself but as one of us, and in this is he the more excellent and glorious, that he esteemeth himself as one of us, and doth not less remember himself to be a man, than to haue power and authority over men. Now as we cannot but rely and depend vpon him, when we see Truth to be the teacher, he hath shewed, and frailty the scholar, unto thee, o man: so must it needs be a greater motive, when wee farther see truth itself, to teach frailty itself, what is good in itself, He hath shewed unto thee, o man, what is good: for when nothing but true can satisfy the understanding, nothing but good the will of the soul; how can wee but bee carried with probabilities for truths, to good in show, for good indeed, if we haue not an infallible rule of truth, to led us unto that which is truly good? The wisdom of man hath spent both her time and herself in the search of this point, to know by discourse the nature of good in human actions: and finding all, both men and nations, to be carried with a natural desire of good, but yet in such variety, as that it hath almost been true, so many men, so many opinions of good; so many nations, so many laws of goodness: they haue in effect concluded as Aristotle observeth, 
Eth. 1. ca. 30.  Res honestas & iustas lege potius quam natura constare, that things are honest and just, rather as they are made by law, than as they are by nature. In which conclusion notwithstanding they more prove their own ignorance, than the truth of that which they affirm; and as Tully noteth of the Philosopher Dicaearchus, 
Tusc. 1.  Quia difficilis erat ainae quid aut qualis esset explicatio, nihil esse dixit, that because it was hard to him to conceive what the nature or properties of the soul were, therefore he affirmed the soul to be nothing: so doth their Quaestio an sit grow out of their ignorance, Quid sit natura boni: they doubt whether there be any nature of good, because they know not what it is. Indeed, as the many questions of religion made it( as one observed of the disputing age wherein he lived) rem ingeniòsam esse Christianum, a matter of great wit to be a Christian; so the many circumstances in the actions of good and evil, do make it a matter of great wisdom to be a good Christian, yet doth not the variety of circumstances in the actions imply an uncertainty or unconstancy in the nature of goodness; but rather the nature of goodness requireth such a conformity of every action in every circumstance to that which is good in itself: as that there is a terrible woe denounced against them who make good evil, and evil good. Es. 3.20. which, as it taketh all power from princes, to make their will, reason, and their pleasure, right; so doth it leave no liberty either to prince or people, to excuse evil by the multitude, as if it were well done which is done commonly; or to defend evil by the example of evil doers, as if it were lawfully done, which is done by authority; or to justify evil by the custom of evil doing, as if there were no exception against it, when there is prescription of time for it. For even they, who had not the true knowledge of the living God, had yet this persuasion of the nature of good, Si Deos homines queen celare possent, nihil injust, nihil auare, nihil libidiniose, esse faciendum, that though there were no fear either of God or of man, yet there was nothing unjustly, nothing covetously, nothing wickedly to be committed. Which is the true meaning of the Apostle, Rom. 2.14, where he speaketh of the Gentiles that they are a law unto themselves; not that things are good or evil as they make them, but that they haue the effect of his law written in their hearts and consciences; when they cannot but yield their assent, without question, to those principles of good, that good is to be loved, that the greater good is to be preferred before the lesser, that we are to do as we would be done unto, and such like. Which in as much as they haue not been revealed to them by such extraordinary means as to the people of God, therefore haue they been reputed the makers of those laws, which are indeed God his laws, and they but onely the finders out of them, or rather of the will of God in them. And surely if there were no more but these principles of good, delivered in a generality unto man in that other book of God, the law of nature; it were enough to prove, that there is a constant nature of good, not in opinion, but in truth, not as it is made by law, but as it is indeed. And therefore Saint Augustine in his third book & fourteenth chapter, De doctrina Christiana, taxing some whom he calleth Dormitantes, half waking men, as neither altogether asleep in ignorance, nor thoroughly awaked to see so much of the truth as they might, for thinking nothing just in itself but according to the custom of every nation, useth but that one rule, do as thou wouldest be done unto, to refute them: which, saith he, Cum refertur ad dilectionem Dei omnia flagitia moriuntur; cum ad dilectionem proximi, omnia facinora: refer it to the love of God, and it extinguisheth all crimes, to the love of thy neighbour, and it banisheth all wrongs out of the world. But that which the book of nature teacheth confusedly, and but in a generality, and therefore is compared by an ancient loriter, to the dawning of the day, neither so dark as night, nor so clear as day; neither hiding all, nor revealing all the nature of good unto us, enough as the Apostle gathereth, 
Rom. 2.15.  to accuse the conscience, but not enough to reform the will: is made as clear as the noon day, by that son of righteousness, whose law is perfect concerning the soul: 
Malach. 4.2.  whose Statutes are right and rejoice the heart; whose commandment is sure, and giveth light to the eyes; whose judgements are true and righteous altogether. Psal. 19.6, 7, 8, 9; yea, for the certain knowledge of that which is truly good, as it is said judge. 8.2. that the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim is better than the vintage of Abiezer; so may there better rules for all kind of persons in all kinds of duty be gleaned out of the book of God, than all the huge volumes of man his wisdom can afford; especially when it hath a property, which no other book can challenge, that Quicquid docetur veritas, quicquid praecipitur bonitas, quicquid promittitur, foelicitas est, as Hugo speaketh: whatsoever is taught, is truth? whatsoever is commanded, is goodness? whatsoever is promised, is perfect happiness.  
Yet such is the corruption of our nature, that having so true an instruction in so frail a condition, too good without exception; we must be farther urged and quickened thereunto, with the power and authority of a law, as to a thing which the Lord requireth of vs. For though virtue haue no reward better, 'vice no punishment greater, than itself; and therefore we should not need to be forced, either to affect the one, or to fly the other: yet because it commonly falleth out, that for the one we praise good, but seek the reward; and for the other, we mislike evil, but more for the punishment than for the sin, is he driven, as to show us what is good, so to set before us life and death, blessing and cursing, Deut. 30.29; that he may bind us, as it were, with the chains of hope and fear, of reward and punishment, to a more earnest zeal of that which is good; when we know, that as the Lord he requireth it at our hands. And hereof it is not onely that he gave the law which gendereth unto bondage, Gal. 4.24, in that full power of, I am the Lord thy God. Exod. 20.2; but also that he maketh that of grace, whereby we are free from the curse of the law, Faith; the very law of faith, Rom. 3.27, and bindeth us to that which is the fulfilling of the law, love; 
Rom. 13.8.  than the which, nothing should be more voluntary, under the name of a new commandment. joh. 13.34: as if our rebellious nature could not bee either restrained from evil but with the bridle, or encouraged to good but with the spur of a law. For howsoever it be true which the Apostle hath 1. Tim. 1.9, that justo non est posita lex, the law is not given to a righteous man, either ad condemnationem, to condemn him who is free, as some interpret, or ad coactionem, to constrain him who is willing to obey, as others understand it: yet is there no man so free from sin, as that he is not thereby made even the seruant of righteousness, Rom. 6.18; neither is there any man so willing to obey, as that he hath not in himself a law rebelling against the law of his mind, and leading him captive into the law of sin. Rom. 7.23; yea, liberum Arbitrium, as Tho. Aquinas well noteth vpon the sixth to the romans, est semper servum aut peccati aut gratiae, the free will of man is ever a seruant either of sin or of grace: a seruant of sin, and so under the curse of the law; a seruant of grace, and so under the obedience of the gospel; I say under the obedience of the gospel, because though it be life, and that, everlasting, to know God, and whom he sent, Iesus Christ. John. 17.3; yet we know no more than we beleeue, and we beleeue no more than we obey, yea, the covenant of grace, Circumcision is profitable, as the Apostle speaketh, if we do the law. Rom. 2.25; and the gospel, which in Christ taketh away the curse of the law, and so the strength of sin( as the Law is called 1. Cor. 15.56) is so far from taking away the duty of the law, as that it addeth to our obedience, is as severe against the affections, as the law against the actions of evil, maketh it theft to covet thy neighbours goods, and murder to be angry with thy brother, and adultery to look vpon a woman to lust after her. Matth. 5, and treason to curse the king, though it be but in thy thought. Eccles. 10.20; restraineth not only from evil, but from all apparance of evil. Thes. 5.22; condemneth not onely the cart-ropes of sin, but the cords of vanity. Esay. 3.18; taketh a strict account Matth. 12.36, of every, not onely wicked but idle, not onely dead but word, I may well add thought also: which as it washeth away, and purgeth us of that slander which the church of Rome hath cast vpon our profession of the gospel, as if by our doctrine of faith, which doth onely justify, we did let loose the reins of obedience, and bring in a liberty or rather looseness of life, unworthy the gospel; when in truth wee require as much, if not more, obedience than they,( though we require it, rather as a matter of duty than of merit, and thereby deny them to haue faith with us, who can speak as though they hated 'vice, and yet live as though they hated virtue:) so doth it justly condemn that idle and profunctorie hearing of sermons, which too many make the whole both duty & fruit of their religion, as if they ought nothing but their ears unto the Lord: whereas he who speaketh by the ear to the heart, speaketh to the ear but for the heart; and that we may both hear with reverence, and beleeue unto obedience, requireth a kind of circumcision both of the ear and of the heart, 
Deut. 10.16.  yea he denounceth them to be of uncircumcised ears and uncircumcised hearts, who by not obeying the word, resist the holy-ghost, Act. 7.51: Which being so, that in matters of such moment, to neglect, is, to contemn, and not to obey the word, is, to resist the holy ghost, What shall we say of the mighty men of the earth, who think they do God a favor when they tread in his Courts, and a grace to his ambassadors, when they lend their ears to an houres audience; but can no way yield, that the sceptre of his kingdom, the Word, should haue a power to command their hearts? And hereof it is, that the Word especially in the courts of princes, hath in a manner lost the authority of the Word, is become rather an instructor than a correcter, a disputer than a commander; and thereby hath a power in some sort to make the good better, but hardly any power to make the evil good. For howsoever we may haue audience, if we come as suitors, and by way of entreaty, beseech, that you will be reconciled unto God, 2. Cor. 3.20; yet if we come in the style of a commander, 1. Thess. 4.11; or with a rod for the advancement of that kingdom, which is not in word but in power, 1. Cor. 4.21, what do wee but beat the air? where shall we find either ears patient of reproof, or hearts that will yield to haue their stony hardness broken with the Hammer of the word, 
Hier. 23.29. Ephe. 6.17.  and their inordinat lusts slain with the sword of the spirit, which yet( if they will profit by it) is to enter to the dividing asunder of the soul and of the spirit, and to the discerning of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Heb. 4.12; and even to captive every thought to the obedience of Christ. 1. Cor. 10.5. In which respect, that no heart should bee so proud, as to break the bands, and to cast away the cords of this obedience, he that requireth it as our duty, & only requireth it for our good, doth also require it in the fullness of power, in as much as he requireth it as the Lord: for though he be most ready both to prevent and assist us with his grace, to touch and enlarge our hearts with his spirit, that we may even run the way of his commandements. Psal. 119.32; and say with S. Augustine, Da quod jubes, & jube quod vis: grant what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt; yet least in our frailty we should run the riot of our corrupt nature, doth he stop our way, as the Prophet speaketh, with thorns, and hedge us in from the beaten paths of wickedness, Hos. 2.6; that we may know him to be no less the Lord of power than the God of grace, and assure ourselves, that when he cannot persuade obedience with the golden sceptre of his grace, he will proceed against disobedience with the iron sceptre of his wrath, and crush them in pieces even like potters vessels, though they be never so mighty, that band themselves against him and his Christ. Psal. 2.2: for whom hath he lifted so far above others, as that he hath not left them below himself? How may the mighty think to break through his laws, as it were through the web of a spider, who bindeth kings with chains, and nobles with links of iron? Psal. 149.8. How can there be any counsel against the Lord? when no counsel can steal a thought from his knowledge, what can all the monarchs of the world promise unto themselves in those things wherein they are most mighty? when he holdeth the success and event of all things in his own power, as his own prerogative, that will they, nill they, they must depend vpon him; how may any wickedness, though armed with authority, hope for a protection from his law, or imagine that the mountaines may cover it from his wrath, when there is no flying from his power, no perverting of his law, no appeal from his iudgement? How much the more necessary is it for all without exception, to enter into the heart of this meditation, and in the frailty of their condition, to aclowledge, not only that it is true wisdom to know the Good which he hath shewed, but also that it is perfect liberty to yield that obedience, which as the Lord he hath required; that kings cast their crowns at his feet, & nobles seek their honor in his service, in as much as Deo servire est regnare, it is a very kingdom to serve the Lord: yea a kingdom that will deliver them and set thē free from the tyranny of their own affections, which otherwise will rule and overrule both them and their kingdoms, if they be not subdued by & to the kingdom of Christ; so shall nobles be more noble than they were born, in as much as they shall be partakers of a new birth in Christ; and kings, greater kings than by their kingdoms, in as much as they shal be kings even over themselves.   


This which followeth,( with a brief repetition of that which goeth before) was preached at Wilton.  NOw that none, no not the mountains and mighty foundations of the earth, that is, the rulers and princes of the people, should flatter themselves, that they haue done all that is required, when they haue offered him a rich sacrifice, thousands of rams, or ten thousand riuers of oil, as it were a ransom for their cruelty and oppression otherwise; which is truly called the sacrifice of fools, for they know not that they do evil. Eccles. 4.17. he specifieth the good which he hath shewed, and the duty which as the Lord he hath required to reach unto all the parts of a mans life, and chiefly to consist in that life of civil society, To do justly, not in any such extremity, as to turn iustice into wormwood, 
Amos. 5.7.  but withall to love mercy, and so to haue both their Iustice and their mercy seasoned with true religion and unfeigned holinesse, as that they humble themselves to walk with their God. Which words imply a comparison between sacrifices, which they knew to be their duty toward God, and Iustice and mercy, which they imagined to be but their duties towards men: not like that Matth. 23.23, of the lesser and greater things of the law, of which the resolution is, these things ye ought to haue done, and not to haue left the other undone; but as of things which ought both to be done; and of the which there is indeed neither done, if they be not both done, and that according as the Lord hath required: for as the iustice of Aristides is not virtue, but sin, if without Faith, because whatsoever is not of faith, is sin, Rom. 14.22: so the sacrifice of Cain, is not holinesse, but hypocrisy, if without the love of his brother, because if any man say I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar, 1. joh. 4.20: and therefore as a moral or civil honesty is not acceptable unto salvation, unless it be sanctified with the true worship of the living God, so can they no way be said to worship the living God in truth, whose holinesse is not expressed even in their moral and their civil duties. For he who requireth the entire service of the whole heart, and so of the whole man in all things: as he cannot endure a heart and a heart, a heart divided between him and the world, so neither doth he accept this part or that part for the whole service which is due unto him, either preaching without praying, or praying without preaching, or both without a religious conversation. For what need hath he of our religious service, that he should require it, but for our good? What can the sacrificing even of thousands of Rams be unto him, of whom it is said, Psal. 50.10, all the beasts of the forest are mine, and the cattle vpon a thousand mountaines, that either it should suffice and go for all that is otherwise to be done, or be a cloak for that which is done amiss? when in comparison of that which is otherwise to bee done, he not onely esteemeth the knowledge of God, better than sacrifice, Hos. 6.6, the praising of his name better than a young bullock, which hath horns and hoofes, Psal. 69.31; obedience better than the fat of rams, 1. Sam. 15.22; the love of God with all the heart, and thy neighbour as thyself, better than all burnt offerings, Marc. 12.33; but also professeth, that he will haue mercy, and not sacrifice. Mat. 9.13; he will haue a contrite heart, and not sacrifices, Psal. 51.16; and though he otherwise haue required them, yet in comparison he speaketh, Es. 1.11, What haue I to do with the multitude of your sacrifices, who hath required them at your hands? nay, he who in comparison of that which he more requireth, is said not to require them; is so far from enduring them to be cloaks of evil doing, as that he hateth and detesteth them in evil doers: Your oblations are in vain, your incense an abomination unto me; my soul hateth your solemn feasts; who hath required you to tread in my courts? when you lift up your hands, I will hid mine eyes, though you make many prayers, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood. Es. 1.13. Which as it cannot but unmask hypocrisy, when she shall see Holinesse itself to bee no pretence or cloak for sin, but that the prayers of the sinful are an abomination, Es. 1.15; and that to profane hearts the word of life, is the savour of death unto death. 2. Cor. 2.16; and the unworthy receiving of the Sacrament, the eating and drinking of their own damnation, 1. Cor. 11.29; yea that to a transgressor of the law, circumcision is made uncircumcision, Rom. 2.25; so doth it direct all hearts to that which is the one end of all their holy duties, the fruit of holinesse in themselves, to the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, Psal 51.17; to the offering up of our bodies, a living sacrifice, Rom. 12.1; in the which as gregory speaketh, Non aliena caro said propria voluntas mactatur, not beasts but our beastly affections are stain unto him, to the rendering of the calves of our lips, Hos. 14.3; which is interpnted to be the fruit of the lips, which confess his name, Heb. 13.15; in a word to that which in this place he hath shewed to be good, and to be the thing which as the Lord he requireth, namely, to do justly and to love mercy, and to humble thyself to walk with thy God. And surely, when a man is made, as one noteth, Deum cognoscendo divinus, deum imitando Deus, divine by the knowledge, by the imitation of God, partaker of the divine nature; I do not say how can sacrifice be more acceptable, but what sacrifice can be so acceptable to God, as that of Iustice, in the which, they that come near unto him, become as the prophet speaketh, gods among men. 
Psal. 82.1.  A virtue which the heathen did aclowledge to bee mentem Dei, the mind of God, Harmoniam Coeli, the harmony of heaven, and Concordiam mundi, the concord of the world; yea a concord of discords, in as much as by a geometrical proportion it is the temper of contrary elements in the world, of contrary humours in the body, of contrary affections in the soul, and of contrary factions in the common-wealth, and so giveth every one his own, as is for the greatest good of every one in particular, and the whole in general: that as in natural things, the fire may not use his power to consume the air; nor the water break his bounds to overflow the earth, but the one must serve the good of another, and all join to the good of the whole: so in the societies of men, the higher in place may not think it power, to oppress inferiors; or greatness, to draw all unto themselves; but know, that it is power to rule by the laws of Iustice, and that for greatness, dimidium est plus toto( as a good schoolmaster of their own policies hath taught them) half is more than all: yea, that they are more safely great, when their subiects haue a right in their laws under them, than when by the vnlimitted power of a prerogative, they derive all to their own will and pleasure. For howsoever it is the misery of princes, to haue such flattery dwelling in their ears, as will pervert goodness itself, and rather tell them, how great they are, than how good they should be; howsoever they abound about them, who will not spare to give them that counsel which the Nobles of Persia gave Cambyses, when he had a mind to marry his own sister, that though there were no direct law for the marrying of his sister, there was law enough for him to do what he listed: yet if that stranger in the ears of princes, Truth, might be heard, which in a love to their good, is no enemy to their greatness, it would bee evident, that it is Quiddam maius imperio submittere legibus principatum, as Theodosius the good emperor was wont to say; to submit their power unto laws, is a greater greatness than to be a king: that as Agesilaus affirmeth in Plutarch, he is Rex maior qui Iustior, the greater, that is the juster king; that facere recte cives suos princeps optimus faciendo docet, cumque sit imperio maximus exemplo maior est, 
Lib. 2.  as Velleius Paterculus recordeth, a good prince doth teach his subiects to do well by doing well, and though he be greatest by his place, is yet greater by his example. Indeed as a people is but a burden to itself, and a prey to others, Simens illa imperij subtrahatur, as Seneca speaketh, if it haue not a king, as the life and soul of government; so remota iustitia( to use the words of Saint Augustine) quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia? What are kingdoms, but great oppressions without iustice; by the which the throne of the King is established, Pro. 16.12; and which there is a necessity even for wicked princes to love and maintain, Si non propter seipsam, tamen propter seipsos, if not for itself, yet for themselves, that so they may uphold even that greatness of theirs, which many of them more seek than the good of their people. For whereas injustice doth purchase them but false friends, even of such, as reap the benefit of their injustice; Iustice hath a power to conquer hatred, ac hostes perinde attrahit vt magnets ferrum, as Constantinus Manasses writeth, hath no less power to reconcile enemies, than the loadstone hath to draw Iron: yea( that which is the reason of both) there is not a greater sympathy between the loadstone and iron, than between Iustice and the heart of man, which cannot but love Iustice in those whom it hateth, & hateth the imputation of no crime so much as of injustice, as we may see by him in the comedy, Leno sum fateor periurus pernicies communis adoloscentium tamen tibi a me nulla facta est iniuria; I am a wicked and perjured person, and a common corrupter of young men, but yet I never did you any wrong: as if it were no matter what we did, so we did no wrong; yea, as if it were the nature of the heart to do as we would be done unto, and nothing so unnatural, as to be unjust. For this cause hath antiquity termed them monstra hominum, rather monsters than men, that without all either love of iustice, or care of their people, haue not spared to say with Caligula, Mihi ominia & in omnes licent, it is lawful for me to do all things to all men, or with Tiberius, Me mortuo igne terra misceatur, let the world bee consumed with fire, when I am dead; or as Nero corrected it, but to the worse, Imo me vivo, let it be so while I am alive. Which kind of rulers never come abroad, but the people fly them, as Seneca speaketh, tanquam noxium animal è cubili procedens, as if some venomous serpent or ravenous wolf came out of his den: whereas to a prince of iustice and mercy, such as Titus was, whom they termed, Amorem & delicias humani generis, the love and delight of mankind, tanquam ad clarum & benificum Sidus certatim aduolant, they strive to flock as to the bright and comfortable star of their happiness. And surely, howsoever the place of government doth command both the body and the goods, and carry that which the Apostle calleth 〈◇〉, an eye service, Colos. 3.21: it is Iustice, and onely Iustice that draweth the heart, and maketh men, eadem secreto de principe loqui quae palam, as Seneca noteth, to speak as well in secret as openly of the prince, and to yield such an obedience, as is of conscience, and not of fear. But that Iustice which is called regnia virtutum, the queen of virtues; and vniculum ciuitatum, the band of civil society; and hath indeed a kingdom in the hearts of men; is not to do Iusta, the things that are just, which unjust men may unjustly do; but as the Propht specifieth in this place, to do justly: which requireth the mind of iustice in the doer, the rules of iustice in the things done, and the end of iustice in the doing. The mind of iustice in the doer, because Rex est viua lex, the king is and ought to be a living law, as Aristotle termeth him: a law, and therefore just; living, and therefore intending the execution of Iustice: yea, the king is not so properly to bee termed just, as Iustice itself; because his will as gregory nazianzen speaketh, is 〈◇〉, 
Claudian.  an unwritten law, Nec sie infectere sensus humanos edicta valent ac vita regentis, neither are the hearts of people so easily turned and carried with the dead letter of a written law, as with that life of law, Iustice living in the life of the prince. For as Augustine filled them empire with learned men, Tiberius with dissemblers, Nero with musicians, Commodus with fencers, Constantine with Christians, julian with scorners of christianity: so is it a rule without exception, Rex velit honesta nemo non eadem velit, that if the heart of the king be set vpon honest things, the hartes of all others will be set vpon the same things with him. And this mind of Iustice in the King, quasi in primo motere, as in that highest Sphere, in whose power the other Spheres of authority haue their power to command, will make it a care above all his cares, not onely to place such in authority under him, as shall be men of courage, fearing God, dealing truly, and hating covetousness, Exod. 18.21; but also to deliver and ease his kingdom of such magistrates as shall sell themselves to work wickedness, 
1. King. 21.25  and bring vpon the state & common-wealth a burden more intolerable than the tyranny of any king, as it were many kings, to oppress and tyrannize over his people. Out of the mind of iustice in the doer, will follow a due care of the rules of iustice in the things done; that they haue open ears to the just complaints of unjust dealing, least they hear that which a simplo woman  told Alexander, when he lightly regarded her petition, Si non vacat noli igitur imperare; why art thou a king, if thou haue no leisure, or if it be not thy pleasure to hear causes? That they haue an ear for the plaintiff, and an ear for the defendant, 
Seneca in Medea.  because Qui statuit aliquid parte inauditae alterae aequum licet statuerit, haud aequus fuit, He that decreeth for either part, before both parts be heard, howsoever his decree may happen to be just, he himself cannot but be held unjust. 3. That in hearing of causes, they be not inclining either to the right hand of love, or to the left hand of hatred, to beleeue arguments of persuasion for a friend, before arguments concluding for an enemy; but without all respect of persons or reward, they be free and clear from having the balances of deceit in their hands, or the treasures of wickedness in their houses, Mich. 6.10.4. That they suffer not their laws either by the multitude of constitutions to bee snares to good minds, or by the cavils and quirks of mercenary wits, to bee perverted to bad purposes; but make them rather commanders than disputers, rather to the execution of iustice, than to the cases of contention. 5. That the euerwaking eye of iustice do not so much as wink at sin, but know that reus est incendij qui ignem non restringint, as Clement Alexandrinus speaketh, he setteth the city on fire, that goeth not about to quench it, and doth as it were, bid, that doth not forbid to sin. 6. That regia mensura, 
Plutarch. in Agesilao.  the kings measure, as Iustice is called, be not denied the meanest of his subiects, but all personal respects laid aside the cause of the poor and needy, may come in equal balance with the rich and mighty. Neither yet hath this mind of Iustice in the doer, or these rules of Iustice in the things done, their full perfection, but in the end; namely, that in the doing of Iustice, nothing be sought but the true end, that neither the reward of virtue be made the gift of favour, nor the punishment of 'vice a mean to reuenge, but the mind of Iustice in the doer according to the true rules of Iustice in the things done, seek the true end of Iustice in the doing, to yield every one his own.  
Which is not, as some do both mistake it and abuse it, to think that there is Summa Iustitia in summo jure, the best of Iustice in the extremity of law, but so to do justly, as that withall they love mercy. A virtue, which howsoever it may seem to be opposite to Iustice, doth not so much pervert, as season and temper it to that golden mean, whereby it may be severe against sin, and yet merciful to a sinner. For as Chrysostome noteth, vpon Matthew, Iustice without mercy, is not iustice, but cruelty: as on the other side, mercy without iustice, is not mercy, but foolish pity: and therfore are they the one to serve and help the other, as Augustine prescribeth, Vt salsitudinem correctionis amor Christi temperet & dilectionem proximi sal Iustitia condicit; that both the saltness of correction may be tempered with the love of Christ, and the love of our neighbour seasoned with the salt of Iustice: yea, as Ambrose noteth, they are both necessary, Altera vt disciplina servetur altera ne innocentia opprimittur, the one, that discipline be kept, the other, that innocency be not oppressed: for it hath the experience of too many ages, that both innocency hath been often wounded, yea slain, when the sword of Iustice hath been whet against it with envy and malice; and the crying sins of profane hearts haue gone unpunished, when partiality( which is ever inclining to the worse part) hath abated the edge of the sword of Iustice, and made it dull against them. Wherein though it better stand with the rules of Iustice, to spare the wicked, than to punish the innocent, yea, to pardon many wicked, than to condemn one that is innocent; yet, bonis nocet quisquis pepercerit malis, 
Publius.  he promiseth the good, that doth not promise the wicked; neither doth the love of mercy in this place take away the severity, but the wormwood and acerbitie of Iustice: when the mighty haue bones like lions without marrow, when they lay wait for blood, and hunt their brother with a net, Mich. 7.2; when they dig pits( which wee call plots) for the souls of others, Hier. 18.20; and do not think the cup of Iustice bitter enough, unless it be mingled with their gull, which is justitiam non valde said nimium velle, not to affect or will Iustice enough, but too much; according to that difference which Vellius Paterculus giveth of the natures of Brutus and Cassius: Quicquid volvit valde volvit Brutus, nimium Cassius; in altero maior vis, in altero virtus; Brutum amicum habere malles magis inimicum timeres Cassium; whatsoever Brutus would; he much would it; Cassius too much; that which was virtue in Brutus, was violence in Cassius, a man would rather wish Brutus to be his friend, but more fear Cassius to be his enemy. 
Cic. ep. ad q. frairem.  And surely, as there is Nihil tam deform; quam ad summum imperium acerbitatem natura adiungere, no such deformity, as to haue a bitter nature joined with authority; because nisi miti princeps sit ingenio quicquid 
jac. Typetius  infuderis acessit, unless the prince bee of a mildred disposition, whatsoever wine you poure into him, will turn to vinegar; so for the fruit of such a government, it falleth out which sallust observeth, that Acerbis judicijs civitas magis vastatur quam corrigitur, with bitter judgements a city is sooner wasted than reformed. How much the greater wisdom is there required in this temper, that the sinews of government be neither remitted with too much lenity, nor intended with too much severity; that neither all things nor nothing bee made lawful; that neither the prince decline too much on the right hand, to mar the city with foolish pity, nor too much on the left, to bee like unto Tiberius, of whom Tacitus noteth, that he was Cupidine seueritatis in his etiam quae recte faceret, acerbus, in a desire to bee severe, bitter even in those things which he did well: in a word, that neither he chastise offenders with that indulgence of old Ely to his ungracious sons, do no more so, neither yet with Roboam add affliction to affliction, 
1. Sam. 22.24 1. King. 12.14.  My father laid an heavy yoke vpon you, I will make it heavier; my little finger shall be bigger than his loins; he chastised you with rods, I will correct you with scorpions: but do justly, and love mercy, that is, be mercifully just, and justly merciful: which the way to do is, as Agapetus advised justinian, uti regno hoc inferiore vt scala fiat superioris, to use the kingdom of the earth as a ladder unto the kingdom of heaven, and so by the first step, which is humility, to rise in degrees as it were from virtue to virtue to walk with their God. In which point the spirit of God is ever like itself to direct us unto him both as the Author and the Finisher of our faith, 
Heb. 12.2.  to make in the 〈◇〉 of our instruction to learn of him, and the 〈◇〉 of our perfection to walk with him: that seeing godliness( as Philo speaketh) is the root of all virtues, even as God the Author of all things; seeing as S. Augustine teacheth, Omnia Christiananorum officia sunt sacrificia, all the offices of Christians are sacrifices, all their duties holy duties; we make not a divorce between godliness, and our civil duty, either in the persons, as if Sanctitas pietas fides, 
Seneca in Thyeste.  were priuata bona, holinesse, godliness, and religion, were but for private persons: or in the matter, as if it were a tolerable rule, aliis in rebus pietatem Colas; 
Caesar. Cic. in office.  in other matters I will be religious, but mine honour if not my gain, my profit if not my pleasure, must haue an exception: or in the place, as if there were no question of that principle of the court, exeataula qui vult esse pus, 
Lucan de bel. ciu. lib. 8.  godliness is no good courtier, religion too simplo to bee a counsellor: but rather as our callings are more public, so we strive to be more holy, and holy in all manner of conversation. 1. Pet. 1.15. Yea so holy, that not onely the voice of piety be heard in the chapels and closets; but also the face of piety be seen in the presence, and the heart of piety dwell in the most privy chambers of the courts of princes. Wherein it cannot but be a matter of great difficulty that either Pride which( as we commonly say) is born a courtier, should forget her greatness, to become religious; or Humility, which is the foundation of true religion, should in a manner leave to be herself, and become a courtier. Yet is there no power so great, but if it will walk with God, it must be humbled under the mighty hand of God, 1. Pet. 5.6; and though Humilitas honorata as Bernard calleth it, an humble mind in an honourable place, bee the rarest, yet is it the best of virtues, and an enemy not to the greatness, but the swelling, not to the honour but the pride of a courtier, when he forgetteth God to be God, and himself to be a man. When thou wast little in thine own eyes, I made thee king over Israel, saith God by the Prophet unto Saul; but because thou hast cast away the word of the Lord, the Lord hath cast away thee, & rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, & given it to a neighbour of thine which is better thē thou. 1. Sa. 13.28. so true it is that howsoever this world be made( as the Spanish proverb hath) for the presumptuous; & value men at their own rate, as they are best conceited of themselves: there is no way to the kingdom of heaven, but by the gate of humility, when we haue no opinion of our own wisdom; no confidence in our own power; no hope in our own works; but deny ourselves that we may profess Christ: & even forsake ourselves, that we may walk with our God: which is that fruit of sanctification, which being rooted in humility, doth spread itself in every part of our life, & make every action of ours, both private & public, to yield a savour of God, and a taste of godliness. For the Lord is with us while we be with him: & if we seek him he will be found of us, but if we forsake him he will forsake vs. 2. Chro. 15.2. So as howsoever we talk of God, as of one that hath his seat in heaven; of heaven, as of another world; of the kingdom of heaven; as of a kingdom to come; yet must God dwell in us, and we in him, if wee will walk with him; and though wee be employed and conversant about the things of this world, yet as citizens of that jerusalem which is above, we are to converse in heaven, Phil. 3.20; neither can we be partakers of that kingdom of glory, which is to come, unless the kingdom of his grace be begun in us: yea kings above others must hold their sceptres by his, and wear their earthly crownes, in hope of that crown which is of immortality: and though they haue their people so loyal and willing to obey them, as to say, as they do unto Gedeon, judge. 8.22; reign thou over us, both thou and thy son and thy sons son, yet must their resolution be like Gedeons in the same place, Not I, but the Lord shall reign over you: and then doth the Lord reign over them, when they reign over their people in the Lord, and fashion both their private and their public actions to that pattern of a good king, which david proposeth unto himself, Psal. 101: Where he professeth, that because the chief parts of a Kings duty are Mercy and Iudgement, mercy to the good, and iudgement to the wicked; his delight shall be of mercy and iudgement, I will sing of mercy and iudgement: 
Psal. 101. v. 1.  yea he will so delight in them, as that he will sing them unto the Lord, unto thee o Lord will I sing: as knowing himself bound to make him, who was the Author of his good, the end of his well doing. From which generally, he descendeth to more particular parts of his duty, how he will walk in respect of himself; how in respect of others: in respect of himself, He will walk in the perfect way, which is his godliness; he will walk in the uprightness of his heart, which is his innocency; he will walk warily, which is his wisdom; his godliness, as the root of al his princely virtues, he groundeth vpon the coming of his God to iudgement, I will walk in the perfect way, until thou comest to me: as being well assured, that ther is nothing so sure as his coming, nothing so heavy as the iudgement to come, & therfore nothing so needful, as to live godly until his coming. To his godliness he joineth his innocency and integrity of life, I will walk in the uprightness of mine heart, and not unfitly, because without a good conscience the shipwreck of faith is easily made, 1. Tim. 1.19; but such an integrity as shall be found not abroad only, and in the eyes of men, but within his walls, and be known to him, who is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, I will walk in the uprightness of mine heart, in the midst of mine house; and because piety and integrity are in continual danger, by occasions of evil without, by temptations of evil within, his piety and integrity shall be guarded with wisdom; a wisdom that for occasions without shall make a covenant with his eyes, that they behold no evil, I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes; a covenant with his heart, that it delight not in the works of the wicked, I hate the work of them that fall away, it shall not cleave unto me. For temptations within, his wisdom will be watchful over his will, that he affect no evil, a froward heart shall depart from me, watchful over his understanding, that he bee not so much as acquainted with it, I will know none evil. Howbeit, because it is not enough for any Christian, much less for public persons to be godly, to be sincere, to be wise, unto themselves; therefore he farther addeth, how the king ought to carry himself in respect of others, and that in three sorts, how to such as haue access unto him; how to such as he useth either in his government, or in his family; how toward all that are subject unto him: for such as haue access unto him, he will be carefully circumspectly against two pernicious plagues of a princes court, the maliciously slanderous, and the ambitiously proud: the maliciously slanderous he will cut off, because he useth the tongue which was given for one man to benefit another, to hurt, and that him whom he should love as himself, his neighbour; and that privily and behind the back, for malice never durst look virtue in the face: Him that privily slandereth his neighbour, will I destroy, and worthily, because thereby it cometh to pass, that virtue hath many times no other reward than Cum been feceris male audire, for doing well, to hear ill. The ambitiously proud, whether it be in the vanity of lofty eyes, or in the swelling of an aspiring heart, the one as nothing profitable to himself, the other as dangerous to the state, he will not endure; Him that hath a proud look and a swelling heart, I cannot suffer, and rightly, because for the one, Superbia cum innoxia est, molesta esse non desint, as thucydides observeth, Pride is offensive even when it is harmless; and for the other, the rule of ambition is, aut Caesar aut nihil, as good to be last, as not first. For such as he useth in his government, they are of two sorts, counsellors and inferior officers; for counsellors, he will not be so self-willed, as to take no counsel, but of his own will; he will haue others to sit with him, and those other shall be Veraces terrae, the true and faithful of the land: True and faithful, that they may make a conscience of their counsels; of the land, and as having better experience of their own estate than strangers: and they shall not be taken for favour, but he will use the eyes of his iugdement in the choice of them, Mine eyes shall be vpon the true & faithful of the land that they may sit with me. For inferior officers who are to execute his counsels, he will be very careful that they walk in the perfect way or way of godliness; that it may be a religion to them, not to go beyond their commission, and a matter of conscience not to oppress his subiects, he that walketh in the perfect way, he shall serve me. For such as he useth in his family, he will haue no less care, that neither the deceitful dwell with him, nor the teller of lies haue any grace in his sight; There shall no deceitful person dwell within my house, he that telleth lies stall not remain in my sight: and necessary, because such persons publica in publicum, regia in regem authoritate abutuntur, do commonly abuse public authority against the public good, and the kings authority even against the king, to whom nothing can be so honourable, as to leave that testimony of Nehemiah, 
Nehemi. 5.15.  I haue not like the former gouernours been chargeable unto the people, I made not my seruants lords over them, and this I did because I feared the Lord; Lastly for all that are subject unto him, because he doth not bear the sword in vain, Rom. 13.4, he will destroy and that with our exception, all the wicked of the land; and that betimes in the morning, because in the corruptions of states and times every one day addeth to the wickedness of another; and for no other cause but that which is the end of all, that he may root out all wicked doers from the city of the Lord: betimes will I destroy all the wicked of the land, that may cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord. Now the king that shall make it his whole study, to proportion himself to this pattern, to sing of mercy & iudgement unto the Lord, to be in respect of himself so godly, as to walk in the perfect way, until the coming of God to iudgement; so sincere, as to walk in the uprightness of his heart even within his doors; so wise, as to prevent occasions of evil without, temptations of evil within; and in respect of others, so careful, as to give no access either to the tongue of malice, or the heart of pride; to choose for his counsellors the true and faithful, for the executioners of his counsels, the religious of the land; to banish the deceitful person and the liar out of his family, and in all his dominions, as evil persons daily increase, daily and early to cut them off from the city of God: shall find it, not onely to be the art of arts, but also the benefit of benefits, to rule both himself and his people according to this rule; not only as a rule of christianity for the salvation of his soul, but also as a rule of government for the good of his people; which I shall the less need to apply, because I speak this day in the hearing of such a king, as like another david hath written to himself and his posterity, a pattern of good government, in that which he calleth 〈◇〉, a princely gift, as being indeed, as good a legacy to the Prince his son, as the very kingdoms that he shall leave unto him; and which will no doubt bring many blessings vpon himself & his royal line, and every of his kingdoms, if it be as well practised, as it is well written. The rather because therein he expresseth himself and assureth the world, that the law of God shall be a law to his laws, he will refer himself to that which he hath shewed; and that he may be the better scholar of such a master, he will remember, that though he be a God vpon earth, yet he must learn, in the frailty of his condition how God hath shewed unto him a man; not only what is good in itself, to kind his love & zeal to goodness; but also, what he requireth as the Lord, to waken his heart to a care of it, as of his duty & obedience unto the Lord: that seeing the good which he hath shewed, and the duty which as the Lord he hath required, is, to do justly, as without the which there is no government; to love mercy, as without the which iustice is cruelty; to humble himself to walk with his God, as without the which there is neither true iustice nor true mercy; his Iustice may be tempered with the love of mercy, & both seasoned with that honinesse, which in all his actions may humble him to walk with his God; that true religion and unfeigned holinesse being the eye of wisdom in his counsel, the ear of iustice in his magistrates, the hand of vallor in his nobles, the tongue of persuasion in his preachers, the head of government in himself, & the heart of obedience in his people, it may be the life of his laws, and the strength of his realms; and so build his kingdoms vpon the kingdom of Christ, that both he & his people may be brought by the life of grace unto the life of glory; which the God of glory grant, in the grace of his son Christ, to whom with the Father & the holy Ghost be all honor and glory now and for evermore, Amen.    

¶ A fruitful meditation vpon the sickness, wherewith it pleased God to visit the first year of his majesties reign: preached before the King at Whitehall, the 23. of March, being the last day of his first year.  Michah. 6.13. 
Therefore will I make thee sick in smiting thee, and in making thee desolate because of thy sins.  
IN the judgements of God for sin, and upon sinners, which are as Saint Augustine noteth, though sometimes open, sometimes secret, yet ever just; the wisdom of the world is subject to many errors, as well for the true cause, Therefore, as for the true Author will I; making, rather every thing than their own sins, the ergo or therefore, and rather every second and natural cause, thē the guide of nature, or the cause of causes, the Author of their punishments; whereof it is, that they haue no conceit of extraordinary judgements as of the rod of God, wherewith he professed, I will smite, and make sick in smiting: & less apply that circumstance of the person, thee; Will I make thee sick in smiting thee; but as it is observed in common cares, that Quae ab omnibus curantur ab ominibus negliguntur, every mans care is no mans care; so in common calamities, as those of war and Famine, or this of the Pestilence every one thinketh to provide for one; & the generality of the punishment doth make us to haue the less sense of the punishment, and thereby the less care to turn every one from our evil ways, and to return unto the Lord our God. Howbeit, if when we see the God of nature, to break the order and ordinary course, of nature, 
Ecc●es. 48.3.  and either to shut up the heauens as he did in the daies of Eliah, that they shall not yield their ordinary blessing; or to curse the land as he did in the time of jacob and joseph, 
Gen. 4.53.  that it shall not yield and ordinary increase; or as we now feel him, to draw that sword of his wrath, the Pestilence, which may corrupt the air, and breath of our life, with an extraordinary contagion unto death; we did but remember, that he who cursed the earth for the sin of man, Gen. 3.17, doth never break that ordinary law which he hath given to his other creatures for the service of man, but onely when man doth extraordinarily break the law of his God; never make the breath of one body to be poison to another, but when by the like contagion, the sin of one soul is the death of another: we should not need any deep search for the true cause of our visitation at this time; as every ones own heart telleth him, that in his private sins he hath deserved his part of this punishment: so those crying sins which reign amongst us, proclaim to the world that it is high time, 
Rom. 1.18.  the wrath of God should be revealed from heaven, vpon the ungodliness and unrighteousness of this unthankful land: and that as the prophet proveth in the former part of this chapter, because the Lord hath a quarrel against the mountaines, and mighty foundations of the earth, a quarrel against his people, vers. 2; because the treasures of wickedness are in the house of the wicked, and the balance of deceit and the scant measure which is abominable, vers. 10, and 11; because the rich men are full of cruelty, and the inhabitants haue spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth, vers. 12: therefore( as it followeth in the 13) even therefore, not as irreligious persons, who look no farther then into second cause, do fond imagine this or that eclipse, this or that coniunction of this or that planet, but a power above all powers, which can make the heaven that is over us to be as brass, and the earth that is under us to be as iron, Deut. 28.23; and the air that is about us to be as poison, or( to use the words of the Psalmist) as the snare of the hunter, with terrors of death walking by night, and the arrows of sickeness flying by day, Psal. 91. vers. 5. and 6; I, even I; saith the Lord; howsoever I haue hitherto born, and forborn with a patience beyond all partience; yet now that there is a necessity, that the sinful nation hear the rod and who hath appointed it, vers. 9; will I smite, year, make sick in smiting; not the poor onely, who as yet do chiefly, if not only; bear the heat of this iudgement: but thee even thee, without exception; Therfore will I make thee sick in smiting thee; and that I may proportion my judgements to thy contempts, extraordinary punishments to extraordinatie sins; desolation to abomination, will I make thee desolate, yea desolate will I make thee, and all for thy sins, even for thy sins. A meditation if ever and for any, now and for us most necessary, that for the just cause of the plague amongst us, we seek no other then our own sins, and for the true Author of this iudgement, we look farther then into second causes; and for the iudgement itself, we look vpon it as vpon the rod of God his wrath wherewith he smiteth; and for the better applying of his iustice to our deserts, wee look not so much one vpon the faults of another, as every one into his own heart; and so blame no body but ourselves, that the sins of our long peace are smitten with noisome sickness; and withall be assured, that if we meet him not with repentance in the way, he will poure out the dregs of his wrath to make us desolate, because wee are securely settled vpon the lees of our sins.  
And first, for the true cause either of God his wrath, or man his punishment, whither may wee go but to our own sins? The sin of the first man was the first breach that ever was made between God and man; and ever since as men in sin haue more and more abounded, so haue they been more and more divided from their God, that howsoever in the riches of that mercy, whereby God hath loved even sinful man in his beloved, Ephe. 1.6, he be content to remove our sins as far from us as the East is from the West, Psal. 103.12; yet in that nature of his iustice, whereby he is of pure eyes, Habac. 1.13, and cannot behold, much less endure the thing that is evil: our sins do as much separate and divide us from him, Es. 59. 2, as he is ready vpon our repentance to remove our sins from vs. For this is that admirable temper of his Iustice and mercy, who is both infinitely merciful and infinitely just, that as in Christ he loveth a sinner, so he hateth sin even in a Christian. And though there be no condemnation to thē that are in Christ Iesus, Rome. 8.1, but their sins, yea their heinous sins, washed in the innocent blood of that immaculat lamb, are made of crimson like snow, and of scarlet like wool, Es. 1.18; yet is there correction, and that of sons, Heb. 12.7, which must begin at the house of God, 1. Pet. 4.17, & doth proceed with many stripes, where the will of the master is known, Luk. 12.47: that though the death of Christ haue fully satisfied for all out sins, and born the extremity of whatsoever either the law of God could lay against us, or the wrath of God would lay vpon us; yet hath it left no liberty to build our sins vpon his death, but rather laid a necessity to bury our sins in his death, least by turning the grace of God, as Iude noteth, vers. 4, into wantonness( I speak an horrible thing) we crucify him gain with our sins, Hebr. 6.6, who for our sins hath already been crucified; and so heap unto ourselves wrath against the day of wrath, Rome. 2.5. For as in the creation, the disobedience of the creature made the Creator to hate the work of his own hands, yea that work which he saw to be good, and very good, Gen. 1.31; and not so onely, but when the sin of man did multiply with man, & grow a burden to the earth, in as much as all the thoughts of his heart were evil, and that continually, to repent him that he had made man, Gene. 6.6: so in the reconciliation of the world, by that blessed seed of the cursed woman, the peace that was made between God and man, did not stretch so far as to conclude a peace between God and sin; but he who in Christ was content to be reconciled to his enemies, is yet at enmity with their sins; and though he forgive great sins in Christ, yet doth he punish little sins in Christians; yea the frailties and infirmities of the godly do grieve and make sad the holy spirit of God, whereby they are sealed unto the day of redemption, Ephe. 4.30; as the reckless contempts, and presumptuous blasphemies of the wicked, are said to despite the spirit of grace, Hebr. 10.29. And albeit the blood of Christ do continually cry unto God for us, and speak better things than the blood of Abel, Heb. 12.21; yet doth it not so possess his ears that he can hear no cry against us; but our sins, yea our secret sins, will go up, and that with open mouth unto him, and never cease crying in the ear of his iustice, until they awake him, as it were out of the sleep of his long suffering; that no cain shall murder his brother Abel, but the voice of his brothers blood shall cry unto God from the earth against him, Gene. 4.10; that no david, though a king, shal by any slight or secret policy, take away the life of uriah for the love of his faire wise, but the doubling of his sin shall importune the iustice of God, that what he hath done in secret, may be done to him before all Israel, and before the son, 2. Sam. 12.12: that no treason shall be conceived and hatched in the heart, as it were in the womb of discontentment, of so cunningly contrived and carried in vowed silence, as it were in the safe conduct of an hidded conspiracy, but the birds of the air shall reveal it, & that which hath wings bring it to light, Eccles. 10.20: that no Gehasi shall steal a bribe behind his masters back so closely, but it shall be seen and heard, yea and punished with Naamans leprosy, 2. Kin. 5.27: that no hard heart shall cause tears to run down the widows cheeks, but her cry shall be against him that caused them, and from her cheeks they shall go up to heaven, Eccle. 35.15; that howsoever the mouths of the poor be many times stopped that they may not cry out against the mighty, who grow great by iniquity, and build as it were in blood; yet the ston shall cry out of the wall against them, and the beam out of the timbre shall answer it, Habac. 2.11. Now as he who hath an ear of mercy for the cry of sinners, hath yet an ear of iustice for crying sins; so that heart of his, which aboundeth with grace, is so far from permitting that we should either continue or abound in sin, that grace may abound, Rom. 6.1.; as that it turneth his heart the more from us, and maketh him to detest those things, which otherwise he loveth, and requireth in us; in so much as he hateth his own word, in the mouth of him who hateth to be reformed, Psal. 50.17: and his soul abhorreth to haue the wicked tread in his courts, Es. 1.12; yea as it followeth in the same place, their oblations are in vain, their incense an abomination, their solemn feasts a burden, the stretching out of their hands, and the very prayers they make an offence unto him, and all because their hands are full of blood. Which his mislike even of good things in evil minds, and of things commanded, in such as commit the things which his soul abhorreth; hath been the reason of that his severe proceeding against the transgressions of his best beloved; that a bill of divorce was given to the faithful city, when she was gon so far as to trust in her own beauty, and to play the harlot, Ezech. 16.17; that the peculiar people which he brought out of Egypt, and through the wilderness, with a wonderful love, yea a love that wrought wonders; were in the height of their pride, or rather in the pride of their sins lead captive into Babylon, & made the scorn of all nations; that he who bare Ephraim in his arms, and lead them with the cords of a man, even with the bands of love, Hos. 11.4; to meet with the transgressions of Ephraim, did meet Ephraim as a lion in the way of Assur, or as a breare which is robbed of her whelps, Hos. 13.7.8; that of the same jerusalem which was no less guarded with his providence, then with the hills that were round about her, 
Psal. 125.2 Luke 13.34.  because she stoned the prophets, and knew not the time of her visitation, there was not so much as one ston left vpon another, Matth. 24.2. In which judgements of God, as we cannot but see, with how perfect hatred he hateth sin, when it maketh things otherwise good, evil in his sight; and people dearly beloved, not so dear unto him, but that the frailties of the godly do grieve, as the presumptions of the wicked despite the spirit of grace: so may we thereby gather, that he who hateth nothing but sin, doth punish nothing but sin in vs. For howsoever, in that little conscience which we make of sin, we make the less account of his judgements; and because we do not think ourselves to sin, when we sin, we do not imagine out selves to be punished when we are punished: yet if we deal truly with our own hearts, we shall find, that no evil doth at any time befall us, but it is the punishment of some sin; and that, though our sins be sometime forborn, until they be ripe for the harvest; yet doth the forbearing ad a weight to the punishment, and the judgements of God grow then most heavy vpon us, when we make light our of sins: nay those judgements whereof we haue an hard conceit, when either the wicked are the instruments of God his wrath, or the reason of his iustice is hidden in them; if we turn back the eyes of our remembrance, will bring us to some such sin, as may be enough to prove them just. And therefore, as S. Augustine advised certain chast virgins, who concluded God to bee unjust, 
Lib. I. decim. Dei, cap. 28.  in permitting them to the lust of barbarous souldiers; that they should search their hearts, whether it were not the punishment of some other sin, or for their pride of that virtue: so in the things which we suffer of the wicked most wrongfully, we are not so much to consider how wicked they are by whom we suffer, as how, just he is, who useth their wickedness to the punishment of our sins. Which rule if it be well and truly observed, will bring us to the secret reason of the iustice of God, in many of his judgements, which otherwise to flesh and blood may seem unjust: that howsoever it may be thought a hard measure to punish the child for the sin of the father: yet that iudgement is never executed, but vpon such children as are said to fulfil the measure of their fathers, Matth. 23.32; namely vpon the wicked children of wicked fathers, as it were vpon the venomous brood of the serpent, and that least they should fill the face of the earth with God his enemies, as the Prophet speaketh, Es. 14.21, of those wicked children of the king of Babylon, which yet are said to be cut off for the iniquity of the father. howsoever it may seem great injustice, that Quicquid delirant reges plectantur Achiui, people should bee plagued for the sins of their rulers; yet doth God never sand an evil king but in his anger, Hos. 13.11; or( that which is all one) permit a good king to the power of cunning heads to be wrought to irreligious and unjust ends, but when the sins of the people provoke him thereunto; howsoever many parts of this land, which as yet endure a famine of the bread of life, may hope to excuse themselves vpon the ignorance of their unlearned, or the negligence of their careless pastors, at whose hands their blood shall be required, Ezec. 3.18; yet he, who will require their blood at their pastors hands, hath said they shall perish in their own sins, and especially in those, by which they haue deserved to be punished with such pastors, or at the least been without all care to procure better. True it is that the punishments and afflictions of this life, which are as Saint Augustine speaketh, ignis auro and ignis foeno, in the godly fire to try gold, in the wicked fire to consume chaff; haue different ends in the godly, and the wicked; as being sent to exercise the one to his greater good, and to plague the other to his greater misery: yet is the cause one and the same in both, neither is the godly man at any time exercised, with any such affliction, but his own conscience may assure him, that non venit sine merito, quia Deus est justus, nec erit sine commodo, quia Deus est bonus it cometh not without desert, because God is just; neither shall it be but to his good, because God is good.; And this as it is a good course for private persons, when God doth lay but his finger vpon them, and touch either their estate with want, or their calling with disgrace, or their body with sickness; to run back to the sin which hath deserved it; whereunto the punishment will as readily bring them as any river unto the sea: so is it most necessary for us all, when he stretcheth out his arm, to smite, with those common calamities of war, famine, and the pestilence; that they draw us to a due consideration of those common corruptions, which load the earth with the burden of our sins, and the stink whereof( as Ioel speaketh) doth go up unto heaven for vengeance. 
Ioel. 2.20.  For the cup of God his wrath is never full mixed with read wine, Ps. 75.8, until the measure of our crimson and scarlet sins be filled in: neither are the dregs thereof poured out vpon the wicked, until they be frozen in their dregs, 
Zeph. 1.12.  and settled like Moab vpon the lees of their sins. The earth must be filled with cruelty, 
Hier. 48.11. Gene. 5.20.  before a flood come vpon the earth, Genes. 6.13; and the sins of Sodom and Gomorrha must be exceeding great, 
Genes. 6.24.  and the cry of them must come up to heaven, before the Lord reign down fire and brimstone from heaven to consume them: so slowly doth he proceed even against a sodom of sin, so long as it hath a righteous Lot, & against a whole world of wickedness, until an ark be prepared to save Noah, the preacher of righteousness. Howbeit, when all the 
1 v. 18.  house of Israell is dross, and the 
2 27.  rulers in the midst of her as wolves, when the 
3 28.  Prophets daub with untempered mortar, and the 
4 29.  people live by spoiling and robbing, and a man 
5 30.  is not to bee found, which may make up the hedge, or stand in the gap before the Lord, as the Prophet speaketh, Ezech. 22, of his time; and who can deny it to bee true of ours? when lust, hath not onely lost the conscience of sin, but also the blushy of shane; and as if men had made a covenant with death, and with hell were at an agreement, Es. 28.15; they declare their sins as sodom, and hid them not, Es. 3.9; when the good man is perished out of the earth, and the best is as a brier, and the most righteous sharper than a thorn, Mich. 7.2. & 4: and he that refraineth from evil, maketh himself but a pray, Es. 59.15; when public places both in Church and Commonwealth, which were instituted and ordained to turn the course, and to suppress the rage of sin, are so unfitly fitted with narrow minds, which can haue but private ends, as that all liberty is taken to do evil by authority, whereas authority itself is not tolerable with any mediocrity of good; and thereby the strength of a kingdom Iustice perverted, and the life of Iustice religion contemned: in a word when both ministers and magistrates, whose sins are not onely sins, but examples of sins, 
1. Kin. 21.25.  do sell themselves to work wickedness, and the difference of good and evil is so confounded, as that nothing is thought to be good but in show, nothing true but in opinion: is it possible that there should be a God, and not see? see, and not regard? regard, and not punish? punish, and not proportion his judgements to our sins? no, no, howsoever in the late change of this government, without any change either of the religion or peace of the government; he hath as it were sealed his love unto us, and given us hope beyond and against hope, that he will continue to overflow this land with the everliving spring of his everlasting grace; yet are we to assure ourselves, that he cannot but turn away his grace, when we turn his grace into wantonness: and though it be true which gregory nazianzen writeth, that Non nisi coactus percutit, he never striketh but when he is urged; yet will he smite and smite with a witness, when our sins by a kind of violence force him thereunto. Which is the true therefore, mentioned in this place, by the which the power of powers and judge of Iudges, calleth them to account, who think their places without account; and maketh the strong oaks of Basan, and the tall Cedars of Lybanon, that is, them, who in the strength and pride of their sins ●●ou●ke the most highest; to know, that he will rather break the course of nature, than not break the course of their sins. Therefore will I.  
And so indeed is it time for him: for what can wash away the cruelty and oppressions wherewith the giants of our world do grinned the faces of the poor, and fill the earth, but another flood? What may consume the lust of this land, as it were the lust of another sodom, but fire and brimstone from heaven? How can the disobedience of this age to every kind of authority, equal, if not beyond that of Core, Dathan, and Abiram, think a common death a sufficient punishment; and not rather look that the earth should open her mouth and swallow up the offenders alive, and they go down quick unto the pit, Num. 16.30.? This age is too wise to be moved with ordinary judgements: if we haue the honour to be gods among men, or the power to wo●●e mighty things in the world; we sacrifice to our nets, and burn incense to our yarn, Hab. 1.16: and say, 
Psal. 14.1.  if not with our mouth, yet in our heart there is no God; If our evil counsels haue good success, and when we rebelliously transgress, wee prosper in our wicked ways; we spare not to say, Tush the Lord seeth not: 
Eze. 9.9.  If when wee multiply sin vpon sin, and by the cords of vanity draw on the cart-ropes of iniquity, and add as it were thirst unto drunkenness, we be not plagued like other men, we presume to say, Tush the Lord careth not, 
Zeph. 1.12.  he will do neither good nor evil: If God forbear us, wee think his hand shortened: and if we do not feel his rod, we make a question of his power: yea, the irreligion of this profane age, is grown to that impudency, as to dispute of principles; to call not onely God and his holy word the Scripture, but heaven, hell, angels, divels, the resurrection of the body, and the immortality of the soul in question; so that if he will find any faith vpon earth, he had need to come with new miracles; do I say miracles? I should haue said with more then miracles, least our searching wits find the reason of them, or otherwise conclude them to be but our ignorance of the cause. For whatsoever exception, either vain philosophy, or profane gentility took against the wonderful works of God in elder times; as that the burning and not consuming bush was but a Meteor, 
Exod. 3.2.  that the passage of Israel through the midst of the sea vpon dry ground, 
Exod. 14.22.  was but vpon the advantage of a neape tide, that the Manna which God rained in the wilderness, 
Exod. 16.15.  was but the mildewe of that country, that the fall of the walls of Hiericho at the sound of the trumpets, 
Ios. 6.20.  was but an earthquake; that Christ himself did no miracle but by the help of beelzeebub: 
Mat. 12.24.  that and worse then that do the licentious wits of our time object against the power of God, and so tie him unto second causes, as if the world did run vpon the constant wheels of everlasting motions, which it is not in his power so much as in the power of a clocke-keeper either to break or to alter; that it is now high time for him to cast both heaven and earth in a new mould, if he will prove himself to be a God. Wherein if the reason of man, were not altogether unreasonable, it were incredible to conceive, how contrary a course it ever taketh to that it should; how it ascribeth nothing to the power of God in our punishments, and yet casteth all vpon the will of God in our sins; how it boundeth that which hath no bounds, the power of God, within the narrow lists of second causes: and whereas it should bee bounded itself within the compass of the revealed will of God, it flieth loosely into the boundless bounds of his absolute will, and so casteth all the evil we do, and which is our own, vpon the will of God; but for the evil we suffer, and wherewith God doth justly punish our sins, of that it can find no other reason or author, but this or that eclipse, this or that coniunction of this or that planet; as if philosophy itself had never taught, that Prima causa, & primus motor, the first cause, and the first mover, which moveth all things, and is himself moved of nothing, is liberrimum agens, the freest of Agents, and hath a prerogative above the prerogative of any prince, to work for the good or evil of the whole, above, and beside, yea & against nature: or as if we needed any other experience than our own, of this year; how he can bless a nation beyond all the reason of man his policy; and punish a nation beyond all the rules of second causes. For who can deny? but that it was the work of his own hand, to conquer the malice of all factions, and by uniting even divided hearts, to make as it were, a concord of discords; that he might establish the crown in peace vpon the right and undoubted heir: howsoever they, who heretofore haue been pleaders for broken titles, can now challenge a great part in this work: and that they may insinuate their false hearts into his princely favour, and qualify the distaste of their traitorous books, do not blushy to publish unto the world, 
N.D. In the addition to the preface of the three conversions of England.  that they haue their desires, though not in the order of their wishes, because they first wished him to be a catholic, and then their king; but since he is first their king which wee haue reason to think they never wished, the next of their hope is to haue him a catholic in due time, which we hope they shall haue never reason to hope, especially if they understand catholic in that sense, whereby they haue unproperly impropriated it unto themselves. again, who can deny but that it is the work of his own hand; in this first year of our renewed both religion and peace to better both strength and hope of their continuance; to sauce our ioy with mourning, and the multitude of his mercies one way, with the death of many thousands another, that he may work us to thankfulness for the one, and to repentance by the other? and yet who is he that doth not more study almanacs then the book of God, to derive this visitation rather from Eclipses then from him, who worketh in them and beyond them at his pleasure? But what is it to reason with man his reason, especially in things above reason, and wherein it is so contrary unto itself, as to make unto itself false gods by the same reason for the which it denieth the true? For what was the reason of so many gods among the heathen? but because they made every thing a god that had any rare gift or quality, or did any strange thing, whereof they could find no reason? And what is the reason why so many in these dayes deny the true? but because they cannot find a reason of those mysteries, how a virgin should bear a son; how the word should become flesh; how there should be a resurrection of the body; how a life after death: So because they cannot find a reason of natural things, they make unto themselves false gods, & because they cannot find a reason of supernatural things; they deny the true; and therefore if they would but stand their own reason; strangeness of this yeers plague, which hath raged with so great fury, devoured so many in so short a space, and verified that of the Prophet, a thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, Psal. 91.7; might humble them under the mighty hand of God, to aclowledge his power above second causes, that it is he & he alone, who, as he threateneth in the next place, will smite, & make sick in smiting.  
Which we may not understand of that his ordinary providence, 
Mat. 10.30.  who hath the hairs of our head numbered, 
Mat. 10.29.  & without whom there doth not so much as a sparrow light vpon the ground: whereby he is truly said to haue a stroke in every action, & a hand in every motion; and whereby the greatest Monarchs of the world, in their greatest designs, are but the instruments of his power, 
Prou. 21.1.  who hath the hearts of kings in his hand, & howsoever he hath given them power to work mighty things, hath yet reserved such a prerogative unto himself, that for the success & event of all both counsels and actions, they are to expect it at his hands; but rather of the stretching out of his hand to some extraordinary iudgement, and the thrusting of the sickle or sword of his wrath into the harvest of sins, ripe to execution. For as it cannot be denied but that the finger of God is in the least infirmity wherewith he toucheth any private person; so when the excess of sin doth provoke him to rebuk in anger and to punish a people in his heavy displeasure, 
Psal. 6.1.  he doth not only stretch out his arm, Esa. 9.21, but gather his armies( as job speaketh) cap. 19.12, to camp about them, & fighteth against the wicked with good and evil, natural & supernatural instruments of his wrath. And though his hand be in war, when he sendeth a foreign power as it were a vulture to prey vpon the carrion of a nation ripe or rather rotten in sin; and as the Prophet speaketh, numbereth them unto the sword, Esa. 65.12; though he haue a hand in famine, when he breaketh the staff of bread, 
Ezech 14.13.  and sendeth cleanness of teeth as it is called, Amos 4.6: yet is it most properly the work of his own hand, when he smiteth a nation with the Pestilence, & proceedeth as he did against Egypt with ten plagues, as it were with ten stroke of his mighty hand: And therefore, when God by the Prophet Gad did offer unto david the choice either of seven yeeres famine vpon the land, or three moneths flying before his enemies, or three dayes pestilence among his people; he choose the pestilence, as by the which he did more properly fall into the hand of the Lord, 2. Sa. 24.15: for howsoever the reason of the natural man doth seek the reason of the pestilence in natural causes, and the cure thereof in natural remedies; and thereby the rather fly the places where it is, then the sins which it followeth, as if there were some other physic then repentance for it: yet doth the scripture call it the hand of God, Exod. 9.3; and the sword of the Lord, 1. Chr. 21.30; & the arrows of his wrath, Ps. 91.5. Yea if natural men will but consult the Authors of their own wisdom, they shall find that the heathen poet Homer describing a memorable plague of the Grecians, 
Iliad. 1.  feigneth Apollo to haue sent it by shooting his arrows amongst them: that Hippocrates in his Prognosticis calleth it 〈◇〉, an heavenly punishment or scourge: dionysius Halicarnassaeus, 〈◇〉, a calamity sent from God: Mercurialis, fulmen caeleste, the thunderbolt of heaven; That Galen himself, who in other things ascribeth little to divine power, in his Epidemicis referreth the cure thereof unto the gods; That the romans, 
Dec. 1. lib. 5.  as T. livius witnesseth, when they could find neither cause nor end of it, did by the decree of the senate, consult the books of the sibyls: that as Procopius writeth in the second book of the Persian war, there could no remedy bee found for it, but from God that sent it: that Esculapius as Saint Augustine noteth, 
De ciu. Dei lib. 3. cap. 17.  finding no natural cause of a plague in his time, did cast it vpon that sacrilege, whereby private persons had the houses of their gods in possession; and therefore that they haue no reason, but to aclowledge it to bee as the Canonists define it, bellum Dei contra homines, the war of God against men. And surely if there be any necessity for God to war against men, there is none greater, then that he war against such men, as not only open the mouth of blasphemy against heaven, Psal. 73.9: but fight with the power of reason, against the power of God, & beleeue no more of his rod then they feel, no more of his power then they see in second causes; nay as Balaam did beat the ass which saw the Angel which he saw not; 
Num. 22.27.  so doth the wisdom of the world condemn the foolishness of preaching, which seeth more in the judgements of God then the reason of the natural man can attain unto. But as we red of Tyberius the emperour, that howsoever at some time his greatness among men, made him to forget a greater above him; yet if he did but hear it thunder, he was driven to forget his own greatness, and glad to fly into sellers and caues of the earth for his safety: so howsoever the wantonness of profane wits can dispute and reason of the power of God, as long as it keepeth the ordinary course of second causes; yet if he thunder out his judgements in any extraordinary manner, I do not say how shall their vain reason be able dispute, but how shall their proud hearts be able to endure the consuming fire of his wrath? And therfore let the irreligious amongst us rage both with pen & sword, as julian did against the simplicity of Christ, and christianity; there will be a time when they shall be enforced to cry, Vicisti Galilaee; that he whom they contemned for a Galilean, hath a power above them: let natural wits make all things natural, they shal one day feel that supernatural power, which will reign plagues beyond nature, will smite, & make sick in smiting.  
How much the more fit were it for all without exception, to bend both their wits & their hearts to the better application of that circumstance of the person, ( thee) will I make thee sick in smiting thee; that seeing sin to be the cause, God the author, his smiting sick the punishment, we make the better use of this iudgement. For in general calamities, the poor are not the onely, or the chief offenders; as our saviour Christ speaketh, Luke 13.4; that they vpon whom the tower of Siloam fell, were not sinners above all that dwelled in jerusalem; so it is to be feared, that though the sword of God his wrath haue devoured many thousands, yet hath it left many, and many thousands untouched, whose sins haue as much, if not more, provoked the wrath of God against the land. For though it haue swept the streets of unlawful gain, and made an entry into the shops where the balance of deceit reigneth, and the scant measure which is abominable; though it hath met in some sort with the wantonness of youth, and the idleness of such poor as had rather beg then labour for their living; yet hath it not come near to the seat of injustice, or the house of oppression; it hath passed by the door of bribery, and the church of simony; the schools of atheism, and the possessions of sacrilege haue not been visited; it hath but summoned the court of pride, and the Palace of pleasure, that I may say nothing of many other crying sins, which in many persons and many parts of this land haue been secure and free from it. Which secret iustice of God, to punish lesser sins in some, and not to punish greater in others, to mow down the unprofitable and unfruitful thistles, and not to hue down the rebellious oaks which contemn, and the presumptuous Cedars which challenge the Lord to iudgement; should be so far from giuing heart to sin, or encouragement to sinners, as that it should work the repentance of greater, out of the punishment of lesser offenders; strike the fat kine of Basan which dwell( as they think safely) in the mountaines of Samaria, with a compassion of those silly souls which lye in the high way of the pestilence, and haue not whither to fly from it; yea, it should kindle in public persons, whose sins for the most are the chiefest occasion of public calamities, a zeal like that of david. We O Lord, we are they that haue sinned against heaven, and against thee, but these dearly ones that perish, what haue they done in comparison of us? For as Clemens Alexandrius well observeth; Bona est ars terrere ne peccemus, It is the good art of God to terrify, that we may not sin; and that good art of God toward us, to bee merciful in iustice, to be angry in love; doth require as good harts of us toward him, that seeing as Cyprian noteth, Pestis explorat justitiam singulorum, the plague is a searcher and trier of every good and honest mind; and that, or nothing, can take down the crest of pride, quench the fury of desire, abate the edge of reuenge, weaken the arm of oppression, stop the mouth of blasphemy, yea sift hypocrisy itself unto the bran, and turn the hard heart of covetousness into the bowels of compassion: wee not onely strive every one to amend one, but all jointly to make this plague of ours like that Numb. 11.34, sepulchrum concupiscentiae, the grave and sepulchre of our lusts. But in this point I know not how it cometh to pass, that not only every private person, but every several calling amongst us, do think to clear themselves by accusing others; and as Ahab  told Eliah, 
1. King 18.18.  that it was he, when indeed it was himself, and his fathers house, that troubled Israel: so the magistrates do cast this iudgement of God vpon the faults of the ministers, and the ministers vpon the faults of the magistrates; the lawyer vpon the merchant, and the merchant vpon the lawyer; the Court vpon the country, and the country vpon the Court; the rich vpon the sins of the poor, and the poor vpon the sins of the rich; every one vpon every other, no man vpon himself. And this comparison is that deceitful balance which maketh us to commit many errors, as well in the conscience of our sins, as in the sense of God his judgements, That if our pastors be worse than we, we are no sinners; and if we be plagued for the sins of our rulers, it is no sin of ours that hath deserved to bee plagued with such rulers. If wee at any time bee oppressed with the cruelty, or disgraced by the envy, or wronged by the injustice and tyranny of the wicked; wee complain( and in some respect not without cause) of the wicked, by whom wee receive our injury: wee never enter into our own hearts, to find that sin which our good God, who can justly use unjust means, doth punish in vs. Whereas if we did in singleness of heart examine every one our own ways, and sincerely aclowledge the gross corruptions of our magistracy, in seeking( for the most) their own, before the common good; the shameful abuses of our ministery, in being( many of us) no where ministers but in the pulpit, if in the pulpit; the unsatiable covetousness of the rich, by enclosing livings, and engrossing commodities, to oppress and grinned the faces of the poor; the sinful idleness of the poor, which is the daily mother of incestuous lusts among themselves, of unjust stealing from other men, of seditious conspiracies against the state, and desperat murmurings against God: we would not so much dispute, whether it be thee, or thee, that God smiteth, as pled all guilty of this iudgement; and thereby study every one to amend one, but yet not without a care to amend others. For we are al members of one body, and as the public sins of private persons provoke the wrath of God against whole kingdoms: so when the judgements of God light heavy vpon any part of the whole, every part of the whole is to be moved with it, as it were with the fire of a whole city, though begun but in one house. For though that fornication in the Church of Corinth ( the like whereof was not name among the Gentiles were but the sin of one Corinthian; yet was it laid to all their charge, in that they were puffed up, and had not rather sorrowed, that he who had done the dead might be put from among them) 1. Cor. 5.2; so daungerous a thing it is, I do not say to commit, but not to be offended with that which others commit, when they provoke the wrath of God against the whole. For he that will spare all sodom for one Lot, Genes. 19.22; whose soul is vexed with the unclean conversation of the wicked, 2. Pet. 2.7: will punish all Israel for the sin of one Achan, Ios. 7.1: if in not being offended they seem content with it, or by their silence witness a consent unto it; & therefore howsoever the luke warm spirits of our time can flatter themselves with an opinion of a good conscience, as long as they do not commit the things which the wicked do; yet haue they fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, if they do not reprove them. Ephe. 5.11; and may be said to commit, or at the least to be accessary unto evil, if they do but wink at it; yea the plague will never cease, unless we haue the zeal of Phinehas, Numb. 25.8; I do not say, to slay sinners, but as far as in us lieth, to slay sin even in mighty offenders. And surely if ever there were a time, in the which we had need to be set on fire with that zeal of Phinehas, against the crying sins that reign amongst us; now even now it is, and that for many reasons: First, in respect of his rich mercy; that when our five and forty yeeres peace had brought forth nothing but the evils of long peace; contrary to the reason of man his policy, contrary to the longing and hope of them who haue ever had evil will to our zion, contrary to the expectation and fear of our own hearts, and contrary to the opinion of the whole world; our loss should bee without loss, and our peace changed into peace again. Secondly, in respect of his just mercy, that when it stood not with his Iustice to let so many and so great transgressions to pass unpunished; when our peace had deserved either to be oppressed with the tyranny of a foreign sword, or torn in pieces with the fury of a civil dissension, and our plenty, or fullness of bread, to be punished with a scarcity, or cleannesse of teeth; he should give us as it were the choice of david, and visit us with no other rod then that of the pestilence, whereby we fall but into his own hand, whose mercies are great, 2. Sam. 24.14. Thirdly, in respect of his( if I may so call it) unmerciful iustice; that when the plague was due to our sins, that worthy instrument of his glory and our good, our sovereign, should haue his part in this iudgement▪ and not onely be visited at the gates of his court, but also driven from his own houses, and hunted from country to country, from one city to another, and all for the punishment of our sins; that if we cannot be provoked either by his rich mercy to thankfulness, or by his just mercy to repentance, yet that his( in a maner) unmerciful iustice, to lay our evils vpon him, who hath brought so many good things unto us, and unto ours after us; should strike the hardest of our hearts with a compassionate remorse, and even force us to a complaint contrary to that of king david; that as he when his people were plagued for his sin, cried unto the Lord Me, me adsum qui feci in me conuertite ferrum. I haue sinned, yea I haue done wickedly, but these sheep what haue they done? So our case being clean contrary, our cry should be accordingly; we O Lord, we are they that haue offended, but thine anointed our sovereign, what he hath done, that he should bee welcomed to his birthright with a plague for our sins? The rather because he who as yet doth but smite, and make sick in smiting will proportion his judgements to our sins, and as it followeth in the last place, make us desolate for our sins, if we meet him not with repentance in the way. For he who ordereth all things, in measure, number and weight, Wisd. 11.17; as he hath a rule for persons that potentes potenter, the mighty shall be mightily tormented, Wisd. 6.6: so hath he the measure of tantum and quantum in his judgements: so much as the sinful city hath lived in pleasures, so much shall be given to her torments, Reue. 18.7; the proud nation, that with the son of the morning will ascend into heaven, shall bee brought down to hell, Es. 14.13; the obstinat people that will not hear when the Lord crieth, shall cry unto the Lord, and not be heard, Zach. 7 13; such a proportion hath he in his judgements, that if the good men of a land be but as a basket of summer fruit, whose goodness cannot continue, the sun shall go down at noon unto them, Amos. 8.9: If so few, that like a poor mans sheep they may be numbered, there shall be a remnant left as of Oliues after the shaking of the three, or grapes after the vintage, Esa. 24.13: But if there be a general deluge and inundation of sin which carrieth the stream and course of a kingdom with it, he will then sweep with the besom of destruction, cut off the name with the remnant, and make the land a possession for the hedgehog, Esa. 14.22, and 23▪ wherein if any nation might pled a prerogative; who better then his peculiar people, whom though he multiplied as the sand of the sea, 
Hos. 1.10.  hedged about with his providence, 
Es. 5.2.  fortified with a tower of his strength: yet for the excess of sin, did he lay them wast, and leave them as a cottage in a vineyard, or a lodge in a garden of cucumbers Esa. 1.8. But this iudgement to this land, doth he as yet rather threaten, then hasten; as willing to try us by all means, before he come unto extremities: yea it is more then manifest, that he is more ready to turn from his wrath, then wee from our sins, in that he plucketh us as a firebrand out of the flamme of his heavy displeasure, Amos 4.11: And at this present seemeth to say unto the angel of his wrath, as he did in the time of king david, It is sufficient, hold now thy hand 2. Sam. 24.16. What then remaineth, but that as deere children of so loving a father, we kiss the rod of so merciful a judge? and seeing our sins are the principal cause which haue provoked God as the true Author, to smite, and make sick in smiting, as to a just iudgement; seeing he cannot forget his mercy in iudgement, but stoppeth his fury in the course, and holdeth his hand in the execution of his warth, from proportioning desolation to abomination, a full measure of wrath to the full measure of our sins: both we and our King, we who are justly plagued for our own offences; and our King who beareth a part in our punishment, make a right use of this his visitation; we, that wee repent us of our crying sins, the onely fruits of our long peace, and sin no more, least a worse thing happen unto us; our King, that out of this iudgement he take a warning, and lesson, to know, that he is brought by his and our God to his own, but not for himself; in peace; but not to bee at peace with our sins: that he is sent, as to enjoy the good things, so to reform the evils of this land; and therefore that he is to walk between God and this people, as another Moses, of whom it is excellently observed, that Causam Dei apud populum gladijs, causam populi apud deum lachrimis egit; he pleaded the cause of God to the people with the swords of Iustice: he pleaded the cause of the people to God with the tears of mercy; So, he that hath blessed us with him, will bless us in him, and by him continue unto this land that rich blessing, of true religion, and godly peace, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Which the God of glory grant in the grace of his son Christ, to whom with the Father and the holy ghost be all honour and glory, now and for ever.  
Amen.   

❧ The principal care of Princes to bee jades of the Church. Preached before queen Elizabeth at Whitehall in Lent. 1594.  Isaiah. 49.23. 
Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers.  
THe love of God, or rather God who is love itself, 
1. John. 48.  and in the abundance of his love made the world for man, & man for himself; as he had no other cause of his love, but his love; no other end, but in our good, his glory: so hath he neglected no means to make known, how much he loved man above all the creatures of the earth; how much among men, those that in the unity of faith were gathered to the fellowship of his Church, beyond all the nations of the world. For as in the creation, he did but speak the word, & the heauens were made; 
Psal. 33.6.  he did but command and earthly things were brought forth: when to the framing of his last and best work, he called his wisdom as it were to counsel, how he might make man after his own image and likeness: 
Genes. 1.26.  and seeing in the same wisdom that it was not good for man to be alone, 
Genes. 2.18.  he shewed himself no less careful, how to make him a help, yea such a help as might be meet for him: so after the creation, did his love abound much more; when to recover in some, what all had lost in their father Adam, he travailed many yeeres as it were in childbed with a more then motherly love and care, how he might bring forth unto himself a Church. And though in her nativity she had no eye to pity her, 
Ezech. 16.5.  but was cast out into the open field to the contempt of her person in the day that she was born; though for many of her yeeres she lived but a stranger vpon earth, & was so far from being entertained in the courts of princes, as that shee was banished from the borders of their kingdoms; yet when in her weakness he had sufficiently taught her to know herself, and to aclowledge his power, it pleased him to make her so perfect through his beauty, as that she grew up into a kingdom, 
Eze. 16.13.  and in the end had this of the Prophet fulfilled, that Kings should be her nursing fathers, and Queens her nursing mothers. Which words, howsoever at first sight they may seem to intend nothing but the duty of princes to nourish the Church; nothing but the benefit of the Church, to haue Kings and queens to be her jades; yet if wee try and examine them by their weight, we shall find, that in the duty of princes is the benefit fo princes; and in the benefit of the Church, the duty of the Church implied. For therefore is the Church in all duty more than bound to Princes, because shee hath her peace in their favour; and so much the better do things go with princes, by how much they haue the greater care of religion; insomuch, as, religion and government are rightly said, Mutuis stare non officijs solum said beneficijs, to haue their strength not onely in the duties but in the benefits of the one unto the other. Wherein it is hard to say, Whether the goodness of God were greater toward the church or toward princes, when he called the mighty ones of the world, who were puffed up with the opinion of their own power, and seeing nothing above them, contemned all that was below them, to submit themselves to the doctrine of his will; and to take new rules of policy from that Church which was but base and contemptible in the eyes of the world; howsoever otherwise glorious things were spoken of it. 
Psal. 87.3.  For albeit at the first they were so far divided, as that the Kings of the earth stood up, and the princes took counsel against the Lord and against his Christ; 
Psal. 2. v. 2.  though for an age of the primitive Church, nothing was thought so prejudicial to crownes as the religion of Christ, nothing was found so cruel to the Church, as the persecution of princes; yet when the heat of their rage was somewhat cooled with the tears of innocents, and their thirsty minds satisfied with the blood of martyrs, they grew to such peace, as that the lamb might dwell with the wolf, and the kid feed with the lion, as it was before promised, Esai. 11.6: yea farther, they became such helps the one to the other, as that religion had no such safety as in the protection of princes; and the crownes of princes had no such security, as in the obedience of religious subiects.  
In which point we may observe a notable secret of God his wisdom, who though he had in his hand the hearts of Kings, 
Pro. 21.1.  and might as well at his pleasure haue disposed of the kingdoms of the earth as of the earth itself, which was but his footstool; 
Esai. 66.1  though he knew that the eyes of people were in the heads of princes, & that the calling of one prince would be the converting of many people; yet did he lay the foundation of his Church in the humility of weak means, that all the glory might be his own; and then began to cast his favor toward princes, when it might bee more than manifest, that they were called rather for their own good, than for any need he had of their power: he saw so far into the darkest of all natural secrets, the heart of man, as that he found how ready it is to challenge that which it hath not, unto itself; and that which it hath, as of itself; and therefore how dangerous it were to make them the instruments of his power, who had but an opinion of their own. And though he had in his hand a rod of iron with the which he might haue broken them in pieces like potters vessels; 
Psal. 2.9.  and haue dealt with his Church in the new testament, as he did with his people in the old, when he sealed their deliverance out of Egypt with ten plagues, as it were with ten stroke of his power, vpon their enemies; yet did he rather arm her with patience, and so make the blood of martyrs the seed of the Church: as that in those ten persecutions of her youth, the hearts of tyrants were conquered, as finding that they might sooner want torments then the Christians patience; and that daily the more they were cut off, the more they were increased. And therefore as to the planting of doctrine, he used not the wisdom of the world, but choose the foolish things of the world to confounded the wise, 
1. Cor. 1.27.  that the more might bee ascribed to the grace of his spirit; so in providing for the estate of his Church, he did not begin with the princes of the world, but choose the weak things of the world to confounded the mighty, that wee might the better aclowledge it to bee the work of his own right hand. Howbeit, as when the doctrine was thoroughly planted, the extraordinary gifts of the spirit ceased, & learning was so brought to the obedience of the truth, as that ever after the best learned were the fittest instruments to set it forth: so when the power of God had been in weakness suffiiciently declared to bee such, as all the world was not able to resist; the princes of the earth were taught to kiss the son of righteousness; 
Psal. 2.12.  & as to establish their crownes vpon the fear of the Lord, so to seek their honor in the love of his Church.  
Which while some intemperate spirits haue not been so well advised as to observe; their blind zeal hath carried them so far, as to think, that neither learning could stand with the Spirit of God, nor civil authority with the religion of Christ: and therefore as in disgrace of learning, they pretend I know not what hidden power of the Spirit; so to the overthrow of all good order both in Church and common wealth, they strive for equality, which is truly said and as truly found to be the mother of confusion. Wherein beside that they build vpon a false ground, in that they fashion the ripe yeeres of the Church to her infancy, & admit no more then was in practise in the time of the Apostles( who though they made perfect the rules of doctrine, did yet but draw as it were the first lines of Church government, to the which it should be proportioned according to the circumstance of her increase:) what reason can the most popular minds give, why that rule of the Apostle, 1. Cor. 7.20, Let every man abide in the same vocation wherein he was called, should not as well hold in the Princes that did become Christians, as in the persons of meaner calling? And though it stood not with the good pleasure of God, to give that success to their labours, 
Mat. 4.19.  whom he made fishers, of men, as that at the first they should bee fishers of kings; yet that of the Apostle not many mighty, not many noble are called, implieth that some of them who were called, were noble, 
1. Cor. 1.26.  and mighty: in which some, it was no more required that they should go from their calling, then that every Christian because he was to be renewed in the spirit of his mind Ephe. 4.22, should go out of the body; as it is plain in the Souldiers the third of Luke, whom John did not will they should leave to be Souldiers, but that they should do no violence, and be content with their wages; as also, in that chief governor under the queen of the Aethiopians whom Philip baptized in the eight of the Acts. 
vers. 27.  For it doth not follow that because the kingdom of Christ is not of this world; 
John. 18.36.  therfore Christians may not be Kings, nor the kingdoms of the earth Christian; for as the Church militant liveth in earth, and yet hath her conversation in heaven; 
Phil. 3.20.  so the Christian princes of the world the better they rule vpon earth, the better they serve God in heaven; of whom it is required, non vt diademata abijciant said vt subijciant Deo, 
Tertulian in Apol.  not that they cast away their crownes, but that they wear them to the honor of God. And therefore is their office and function termed as it were by a special prerogative, the ordinance of God, Rom. 13.2: therefore are they themselves renowned with the name of Gods, Psalm. 82.1; therefore is the spirit of God doubled, and his graces multiplied vpon them, beyond the common sort of men; as in & by whom he is to bring more then ordinary things to pass among the sons of men: therfore was it so far from any purpose of God, that the kingdoms of the earth should not stand with the kingdom of his Christ, as that it is prophesied, that the kings of the Isles should offer unto him, 
Psal. 72.10.  and all the nations of the earth should worship him: yea as it is in this place, they should haue that honour to bee the tutors, and jades of his Church.  
And least the iniquity of any salic law should deprive women of this honour, to whom the law of God hath given a right to inherit, 
Num. 27.8.  and so to wear the crownes that go by inheritance; therefore is there special mention made of them, and it is as well promised that Queens should be the nursing mothers, as that Kings should be the nursing fathers of the Church. For howsoever the scripture excepteth against their teaching, yet beside the law, 
1. Cor. 14.3. judge. 4.4.  it hath example of Debora and others for their ruling over the people of God; and the same gospel that hath equally called male & foemale, Gal. 3.28; to be the children of God in Christ; 
1. Pet. 3.7.  yea as Peter speaketh, to be coheirs of the grace of life; doth equally bind them not onely to be religious, but to nourish religion in others, according to that state in the which they are called. Neither was it without a special purpose of God, to give encouragement to that sex, that the faith and well doing of so many women, is so particularly recorded in the scripture, that the entertainment which Rahab gave the spies, 
Ios. 2.1.  is not suffered to die; that the small quantity of meal which the widow of Sareptha spent vpon Elias; 
1. Kin. 17.14. 2. Kin. 4.10.  that the chamber and bed, & table, & stool & candlestick, which the Sunanite provided for Elisseus do not loose their reward; that the diligence of Martha, 
Luk. 10.42. Mat. 15.25. John. 4.28.  and the better choice of mary, and the woman of Canaans strong faith, & the samaritan leaving of her waterpot, to be the messenger of better news, with diuers of the like, are remembered; yea that the poor widows mite is not forgotten. 
Luke 21.3.  For as for that Mary which bestowed but a box of ointment vpon our saviour Christ, the testimony of her is so honourable, as that wheresoever the Gospel of Christ shall bee preached through all the world, 
Mat. 26.13.  there shall that which she hath done, be spoken of for a memorial of her: which as it is enough to put the life of religion into the hearts of women, to see every little duty of theirs so well accepted; so if they enter into a meditation of his special favours to their sex, they must needs confess that they can never honor him enough, who hath honoured thē so far, as to make them the first witnesses of his resurrection: 
Mar. 16.20.  & that as Hugo Lincolniensis noteth, 
Surius in vita Hugonis.  He hath principally deserved the love of women, in that he vouchsafed to be born of a woman, for when it was granted to no man to be the father, it was performed to a woman̄, to be the mother of Christ: & therfore it is no more honor for women to be queens, then it is for queens to bee the jades of his Church. whereof as former times haue left our land some testimony, in as much as in both the nurseries of our Church the bounty of queens as well as the bounty of Kings, is yet living; so there is no doubt but succeeding ages shall confess, that that the cause of religion doth owe more to one queen, then to many Kings that went before her.  
And to say the truth, what is there or can there bee more honourable for either Kings or queens, then to bring their kingdoms to the obedience of his from whom they hold theirs? and to serve him with their mortal crownes, who is able to crown them with immortality, and hath bound himself with a promise as sure as if it were performed, that he will honour them that honour him, 1. Sam. 2.30. For as we see in them that are greatest about princes, that it is more honour for them to serve in court, then to command in their countries; so if the greatest monarchs of the world, would but remember, that which they cannot but know,  
Regum timendorum in proprios greges, 
Horas. lib. 3. odd. 1.   
Reges in ipsos imperium est Dei,  
that though their authority be next and immediat under God, yet they are no more above others thē God above thē; they would be as glad to seek the glory of their crownes, in the service of God, as their nobles are to seek the honour of their estates in the service of them; and withall be no less ambitious of his favour, then others are of theirs. Now what favour of his can there be greater, or equal to this? that he should commend unto their trust that which is as deere to him as the apple of his eye, 
Deut. 32.10.  & require them to perform the care of jades to that Church, to the which he himself hath performed the love of a Mother; or rather more then the love of a Mother, though a Mother should be so unnatural as to forget her child, 
Esa. 49.15.  yet would not he forget his Church, as he speaketh of himself in this Chapter: for if the honour of the seruant be the greatness of the master, & the favour of the master the trust of the seruant; it must needs bee both an honor and a favour to Princes, that they are the jades of the Church; an honor in that they serve the prince of princes, & a favor in that they are trusted with the care of that which is dearest unto him. Which both honour and favor are followed with such a blessing, as that the increase of the Church is as great a benefit to the kingdoms in which it is planted, as the flowing of Nilus to the fruitfulness of Egypt; & godliness, which the Apostle calleth great, & is in dead true gain, hath the promise, not only of the life which is to come, 
1. Tim. 4.8.  but of this life also: so wheresoever he walketh with his church( that ever walketh in the midst of his Church) his very steps drop fatness.  
Howbeit this blessing of kingdoms, doth most follow this honor and favour of God to princes; as princes, and they that are great about princes, are most full of this duty to nourish the Church: of which duty, the first and chief part is, to see religion planted among the people. For government, which is rightly termed alienum bonum, anothers good, because the end therof is the good of others, doth thē truly intend the common good, when it doth chiefly intend the greatest good; & greater good there can be none thē God, who is both the fountain & the end of all goodness: and therefore as it is God by whom Princes reign, 
Pro. 8.16.  so it is he to whom they reign; & as from him they fetch the authority, so to him they must refer the end of their government: for as in the body natural the soul is the life of the body, but God the life of the soul; so in the body politic, the life of government is law, but the life of law, is religion: which they that saw nothing but by the light of nature, did in some measure attain unto, when out of their reason they gathered, that the soul of man was an heavenly substance, and thereby implied that the perfection therof was the knowledge of some more divine nature: which some of them conceived to be the creator, others imagined to be but the governor of heaven and earth. And therefore when by the same light they farther saw, that man was by nature a sociable creature, and that in civil society, some were born to rule, & some to obey, and that of many kinds of government, there was none so natural as that of one; though they yielded authority unto them that did excel, and made good and wholesome laws for them that were to obey: yet the strength of all their states was in their religion, by the which they were persuaded, that their Princes were the children of their gods, 
Hom. & Hesiod.  and their laws drawn from the Oracles of some divine power. They found by experience, how hard it was for men to be brought to obey man, unless they had the authority of more than men; and how little reverence would be given to laws, if they were not derived from such a power, as was rather to bee heard with the ear of obedience, than looked into with the eye of curiosity. And therefore even in that contentious and busy state of Rome, which did but one day make laws, to break them another; they gave the greatest honor to the times of Numa, in the which, as livy speaketh, Fides, & Iusiur andum regebant civitatem, religion and oath did rule the city.  
Now if they whose religion was but policy, had yet the policy to make religion the strength of their policy; how much more ought we to be religiously politic, whose religion is truth, and in whose truth are the best rules of the best policies? For howsoever some profane minds, I do not say that make Tacitus their gospel, as a late French Writer speaketh of some of his country courtiers; 
Vindiciae secundum libert. eccles. gull. sub. Hen. 4.  but who I fear may truly be said to haue studied Lucian more than the old testament, and Machiauell, then the new; do make no more account of the religion of Christ, then of the religions of the heathen, and condemn the simplicity of the gospel, as nothing fit for the policies of these times. Yet he that shall look into it with a single eye, shall find, that it is a bottomless treasure of infinite wisdom, and that the simplicity which it requireth, is not the simplicity of Asses but of doves: which yet is ever joined with wisdom, 
Mat. 10.16.  yea the wisdom of the most subtle, the serpent; not that Christians by the simplicity of doves should be less wise but more honest in their policies. For it is but error, though the heads be never so wise, that hold it, that there is any policy without honesty, and wisdom without religion, or that a shadow of either, as it may blind some eyes, so it may serve all turns. 
2. Sam. 16.23.  The counsel of achitophel may for a time be as the Oracle of God, 
2. Sam. 15.31.  but in the end it will prove mere foolishness: so, true it is, that whatsoever hath but a shadow of appearance, hath but a thought of continuance. Wherein it is hard to conceive, how it may be good to seem, and not better to be religious; or how policy may be established by a false, and not haue more strength from a true religion; especially that religion, whose truth is both from the beginning, and from above, and whose book hath no less in her laws the ground of policy, than in her words the light of truth; and therefore it may as truly bee thought, that from hence was stolen whatsoever is good in policy, as some ancient writers are persuaded, that from hence was borrowed whatsoever is true in philosophy: in which respect, doth one call Plato the Moses of Athens, and basil chargeth the devil as a thief of the Truth, in that he had decked his crows with her feathers. And surely, if the humours of politicians were not so dainty, that they cannot so well relish the same policies out of this book, as out of profane authors; they should find that the religion thereof, though it chiefly intend another life, yet it hath the best rules for this; and making men no less wise, hath only this difference, that it maketh them more virtuous, and that not onely in those duties which become private persons, but in those also which concern the state of a kingdom. For what doth more concern the state of a kingdom, then peace? And what doth more breed peace, then obedience? And what doth more teach either obedience or peace, then the religion of Christ? Who beside that he had his temple, the figure of his Church, built in the daies of Salomon, the daies of peace; 
1. King. 6.1.  and came into the world, to lighten the world in the reign of Augustus, the time of peace;( that I may say nothing of the renewing and cleared of this light from the darkness of superstition in these happy daies of our peace) as he was brought from heaven, with that song of Angels; 
Luke 2.14  Glory bee to God on high and in earth peace: and returned up again with that farewell, Peace I leave with you, 
John 14.27.  I give unto you my peace: so he left unto the world no other doctrine then that which is truly called the Gospel of peace, Ephes. 2.17: whose author is the God of peace, 1. Cor. 14.33; and whose ministers are the Messengers of peace, Rom. 10.15; and whose followers are the children of peace, Luke 10.6; and whose unity is in the bond of peace, Ephe. 4.3; and whose duty is the study of peace, Rom. 12.18; and whose end is that peace which passeth all understanding, Phil. 4.7. Neither doth the Gospel less teach obedience, which is rightly called neruus imperij, the sinew & strength of a kingdom; as well because it is grounded vpon the obedience of Christ, who as Bernard noteth, ne perderet obedientiam perdidit vitam; did rather choose to loose his life then to leave his obedience; as also because it requireth in Christians, obedience, without respect of persons to all, without difference of degrees higher powers, Rom. 13.1; without exception against their qualities not onely to them that are good and courteous, but to them also who are froward, 1. Pet. 2.18; and that in all things, that we give tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour belongeth, Rom. 17.7; and that not with eye service as men pleasers, Col. 3.22; but in singleness of heart as unto Christ, Eph. 6.5; and that not because of wrath but for conscience sake, Rom. 13.5; that, if all the laws and policies of states & kingdoms were gathered into one, they could not be so strong to work peace and to persuade obedience, as these few but very forcible rules of the religion of Christ.  
For whereas laws do but look into the facts, & prune the outrage of evil actions; the rules of religion examine the heart, and cleete the conscience of evil affections, and make every man that is truly religious, to bee unto himself a law beyond law: I say a law beyond law, for as Seneca well noteth quam angusta est innocentia ad legem bonum esse? it is but half a mans honesty to bee no better, then the law maketh him, which reformeth but that, if all that, which the world sees: and out of the danger whereof a wicked man may live, if he haue but a great man to his friend, or not a great man to his enemy. Whereas religion( I ever ad if it be truly in them) will reform the great ones themselves, and make their eyes single without respect of persons, and their ears indifferent to the equity of suits, and their hands clean from the corruption of rewards, and their hearts upright to do nothing without the testimony of a good conscience. How much the more it is not with the water of weeping eyes, but with the tears of bleeding hearts to be lamented, that in so great light there should bee so little fruit, and in so great show so little truth of religion; that in all degrees irreligious hearts should mask under religious faces, and a true Christian no more bee known by what he professeth, then a true friend by what he seemeth; that whereas the truth of religion is the preserver of government, & the mother of obedience; the name of religion is made the firebrand of kingdoms, and the armor of disobedience; and that not onely to maintain the tyranny of that usurping power, who taketh vpon him to depose kings; but also to bring in that anarchy of factious subiects, who presume to give laws to their lawful princes. wherein beside that it is true which lo wrote unto Theodosius, that priuatae causae pietatis aguntur obtentu, 
lo ep. 23.  & cupiditatum quisque suarum religionem quoddle pedissequam habet, private causes are handled with pretence of piety, and every man maketh religion which should be the mistress, the handmaid of his affections; it is intolerable to see how far some busy heads strive to fetch the beginning of kingdoms, 
Vindiciae contra Tyrannos.  and so as they think the right of kings, from the pleasure of the people: whereas in the most kingdoms it is manifest, that they were ordained by God otherwise; how unfitly they proportion absolute monarchs to petty kingdoms, or rather principalities; and the right of inheritance to the liberty of election: whereas to subiects of that kind, it is no more in their power to make kings, then to make heires, which are both reserved to God alone: how contemptuously they term the titles of honour and reverence the solecisms of the court; 
Buchan de jure regni.  whereas the Apostle, Act. 26, 25; doth call Festus by the name of noble: how seditiously they give wings to ambitious humours, to pled the right of a laconical Ephorie against kings, but for themselves; and to arm that beast of many heads, the multitude, which ever goeth, as Seneca speaketh, non quâ eundum est, said qua itur, not whether it should, but whether the stream beareth it, against that( which to want of iudgement is ever most heavy) the present government: whereas the right rules of religion, give no remedy to subiects against the highest authority, but in the necessity of either suffering, or obeying. And therefore they that open that gap, whether it be to the tyranny of ambitious popes, or to the anarchy of seditious subiects; howsoever they pretend the name of religion, they shall sooner prove themselves to haue no religion, then that there is any defence for them in the religion of Christ; which teacheth, as to bee thankful to God for good princes, so to be patient of those whom in anger, as the prophet Hosee speaketh, 
Hos. 13.11.  he setteth over us, for the punishment of our sins; and against whom the first professors of our faith had no weapons but prayers and tears. 
Tertul. in Apol.   
Neither yet doth that follow which some politicians object, That because the religion of Christ teacheth peace, 
Machiauel.  therefore it is unfit for war, and because it persuadeth patience, therefore it maketh men cowards: for howsoever the first building of the temple was without the noise of any iron tool, 1. King. 6.7; to signify, that it should bee the house of peace; yet in the second, as it is in the 4 of Nehemiah. 17, they built with one hand, and held their swords in the other; to show, that in a good cause it should not be unlawful to make war: whereunto the religion of Christ is so far from making cowards, as that it giveth courage, and the faith thereof, as it is in the 11. to the Heb. vers. 34. hath subdued kingdoms, and made men strong and valiant in battle; neither is there any shadow of reason, that they who fight but their own battailes, and but in the confidence of their own strength, and spend their blood more for the glory of this life, than for the hope of any other, should come in comparison with them that fight the Lords battailes, and in the goodness of their cause, with the affiance of his help, from whom they haue assurance, that though they die, yet they shall bee translated to a better life. Wherefore, seeing the religion of Christ is no way an enemy, either to the state, or to the good of princes, but giveth wisdom to their policies, and life to their laws; obedience to their peace, and courage to their warres; there is no such policy for princes, and them that are great about princes, as to maintain the truth of his religion among the people, and especially to provide, against that wantonness of wits, by the which every private spirit is bold to examine the authority of princes, and to call the principles of religion in question.  
In which respect it is the next point of their nursing care, to bee careful of those that are put apart to that great work of planting religion in the hearts of the people; 
Rom. 1.1.  that since it is so necessary a duty, it be not neglected; and since it is so high a calling, it be not contemned. For religion, and the professors of religion, haue ever been subject to one and the same condition; the honor of the one, hath gone with the honor of the other; and the contempt of the one with the contempt of the other; neither was there ever, either age or state, which hath not been alike either friend or enemy to them both. Which I do not speak, as though, in respect of ourselves, the inward testimony( that we are called of God) were not encouragement enough to make us willing to the dudie, and ready to devour, whatsoever contempt may be cast vpon us; as in respect of the common good, whereof outward means are a great occasion if not cause; as well in bringing the best wits to this study, which now for the most, find better preferment every other way; as also for doing good among the people, who are easily brought to contemn either Minister, or Magistrate, that stand in need of them. And therefore if they who so earnestly urge the apostolical times, that we might possess nothing, would conform themselves to the zeal of those times, in the which the faithful sold their lands and houses, 
Act. 4.34.  and laid the price at the Apostles feet, that there might be proportion between their state and ours; and withall remember that equity of the Apostles doctrine, that they who minister spiritual things should reap temporal, Rom. 15.27; and in such measure, that they be able to keep hospitality, 1. Tim. 3.2; and that according to that rule; by the which it is a more blessed thing to give then to receive: 
Act. 20.35.  that little which is left, in some few of the best preferments, would not be so much envied. But blinder times never saw the springs of bounty run so fresh and so fast into the Church, as the time of light hath seen them turned back like jordan; & superstition never gave her so much civil authority, as the world is ready to pluck from that right which she hath in ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Indeed it cannot bee denied, but that when good princes who were her jades and tutors, saw, that the daughter, as he speaketh, 
Bernard.  had eaten up the mother, that is, honour and wealth had swallowed up religion and piety; they had good cause to let her blood in the swelling vein of her proud excess; but that was done rather for her good then for any mind they had she should bleed to death, or be made sick as she is of a continual issue. But desire of gain, which is well called the poison of a good meaning, 
Vindic. eccle. Gallic.  hath made the taste of her spoil so sweet, as that her cure is become as dangerous as her disease: and religion hath taken as deep a wound in the contempt, as ever she had in the excess and pride of her ministery. For who is he that doth not see, that with the authority of ministers, the reverend regard of religion is gone? that for the hypocrisy of but seeming holy, there is brought in the impudency of neither being nor seeming; that the faith which was wont to be in the words, is now scarce found in the oaths of men; and generally, there is so little conscience of either good or evil, as that nothing is thought to bee good but in show, nothing true but in opinion: that as to cure the superstition, we neglect the devotion of prayer; and to avoid the opinion of merit, we cast off the care of doing well; so to take away the superfluity we leave not enough for the necessity of the Church, and thereby haue made her clergy like Hieroboams priests, 
1. King. 13.33.  of the lowest of the people: and think we deal well with her, if with Roboam, for her shields of gold wee give her shields of brass. 
1. Kin. 4.27.  Which hath brought not onely the persons, but the calling, in contempt, and made the world so far from submitting their hearts to their doctrine, or their lives to their censures; as that nothing is so little followed, as the doctrine; nothing so lightly regarded as the censure of the church. How much the more necessary is it for them that haue the tuition and protection of her, to meet with this contempt; and so far forth to nourish her weak and lean estate with giuing her the breast again, as that she may recover her authority among the people; that countenance be given to those courts, which are to conform the lives of men to the rules of faith; that they be not like Spiders webs, which catch but flies, but as well take order for the faults of the mighty, as of the poor and needy; that the liberal allowance, which is committed but to the trust of patrons, be not by simony either mangled or sold; and the best preferments bee not made the rewards of favour, but of worth; that every office in the Church be most severely bound to the duty; and no place abused, either to the baseness of covetous, or to the vanity of proud minds, but we may recover the authority of our calling, as well by that we are, as by that we would haue: that those honourable foundations of both the nurseries bee by all means cherished, that they may prove like that Persian three, whereof Theophrastus maketh mention, which at the same time doth bud, and blossom, and bear fruit; so they may ever be found to haue some ripe for the church and commonwealth, some drawing to their ripeness, some in the floure, and some in the bud of hope; and may ever want the favourable aspect of truly honourable minds to shine vpon them. For as there is nothing so princely in itself, nothing wherein Princes come so near unto God, as in doing of good; so is there no so princely doing of good, as to the Church; as well because whatsoever is done to it, is done to the best and most common good, as also because it is accepted and rewarded, as if it were done to God himself. The care of king david, not to dwell in a house of Cedar trees, while the ark of God remained in curtains, 2. of Sam. 7.2, and his bounty, 2. Sam. 24.24, not to offer any thing unto the Lord, that cost him nothing; are good rules for godly princes, as to haue a principal care of his house, so to spare for no cost in his service: but the blessing of all egypt for the entertainment of joseph; 
2. Sam. 6.11.  of Obed-Edom and all his family, for having the ark of God in his house; may well assure them, that it is not onely no loss, but great gain, whatsoever is done to him or his: vpon whom there is a promise, Matth. 10.41, that a cup of could water shall not loose his reward: nay, as we red in the 1. King. 17, that the widows barrel of meal did not wast by spending, in as much as she spent it vpon the Prophet; so there is no doubt, but they get by giuing, who give to public good, and godly uses: as on the other side, they loose by getting, who would haue all turned or rather overturned to their private. In which respect, as wee haue great cause to bee thankful unto her, who hath carried herself like the sun in the firmament of our estate, gracious and favourable to the common good; and besides the indaungering of her crown for the cause of religion, hath been such a mother to our colleges by her statute of rents in provision, as that in the dearth of yeeres wee are not punished with deceiveableness of bread; such a nurse to Cathedrall Churches, as that by her late confirmation wee may aclowledge her a new founder: so would to God the great above her did remember, that the true lights of the firmament are ever in motion for the good of others; and that but comets and blazing stars are fed with corruption from below; and therefore that there is no such way to true honour, as to use their honour to the good of the Church.  
Now as it is an honour for princes to be the jades of religion among the people, an honour to be the jades of them that are to nourish it in the people; so it is no less honor for them to be the jades of religion in themselves. For as S. Augustine noteth of the virgin mary, that though she were happy by conceiving and bearing our saviour Christ in her womb, yet she was more happy by conceiving and bleeuing him in her heart: so though it be a great happiness for princes to haue Christ in their kingdoms, and a greater to haue their kingdoms Christian; yet it is the greatest of all for themselves to bee Christs: and thereby to haue that which is greater then a kingdom added to their kingdoms: that whereas otherwise they are but kings of their subiects, by being members of Christ they are made kings of themselves, and not so only, but heires also of a greater and better kingdom. A conquest hard, if any, for them that command the world, to command themselves; & when they haue none but God above them, to suffer none to go before them in the service of God: and so much the harder, by reason of those many occasions, by the which they are tempted above others, in the greatness of their power, to forget God; in the abundance of their pleasures, to forget themselves: but yet so much the more necessary, as well for their own good in this life, as for the life which is to come. And therefore hath it pleased God, in great wisdom, to load their crownes with cares, that they might cast their care vpon him. And in that image in the second of Daniel, 32, 33, hath he given great estates to understand, that though they haue heads of gold, arms and breast of silver, belly and thighs of brass, and legs of iron, yet they haue but feet of earth: that they may be taught to build their hope vpon another kingdom: and that not onely for themselves but for the people also that depend vpon them, and to whom their lives are laws, and their examples rules. For as Plinie writeth of the roman fields, that they were then most fruitful, 
Nat. hist. lib. 18. cap. 3.  when they were tilled with the hands of Emperours; as if the earth had reioyced à triumphali aratore coli, as it were in the honor of their labour, who with no less diligence did till the ground, then rule the people; so the increase of religion must needs bee great, when princes themselves are religious, & by the diligent study of Christian philosophy bring that happiness vpon kingdoms which Plato wished. But God be thanked wee haue no such need to haue this point persuaded, as our own thankfulness for this benefit: whatsoeur good hath been done in the cause of religion; whatsoever care hath been had of colleges and Churches; whatsoever good hath fallen vpon the land for the truth of religion, she may well challenge it to bee her own: who notwithstanding the manifest hindrances that lay in her way when she came to the crown; notwithstanding the open enmity of Popes & foreign Princes to her, & her crown; notwithstanding the traitorous practices of undutiful subiects, at home and abroad, against her person, and the peace of her crown; hath shewed her self no less careful of her religion, then of her crown: & therfore as God hath honoured her in this latter age of the world so far beyond other princes, as to make a virgin Queen the best nurse of the religion of him, who had a virgin to his Mother; so hath he answered her care of him with his care of her, and not onely miraculously discovered all attempts against her, 
Claudian.  but also made the wind and the sea to fight for her. What then remaineth? but that we strive every one in our places and calling, to go one before another, in thankfulness to God for his gracious love to us in her; in dutifulness to her, for her religious care of him in us: that since by her government he hath opened unto us the riches of his grace in great plenty, 
Ephe. 1.7.  wee return to him in some measure the fruits I say the fruits of the spirit; that since she hath not spared to adventure her crown for our religion, we hold nothing too deere for the safety of her crown; that as every one hath a place more near to her person, so he bee known to haue a heart more sincere to her religion; that they whom she hath honoured to bee her eyes and her ears in the head of her government, bee single eyes, and faithful ears, as well for the truth of those things which she must know, as for the care of those things which shee must do by them: that we of the ministry seek not ourselves but Christ in our calling, nor so much our own either honour or wealth, as the aduancement ●f religion in our preferments; & so learn to speak our hearts with our tongues, as that they who hear us, may be the more willing to lay their hearts to their ears: that the questions of religion may at length bee brought to resolutions in religion; the talk of God, to godliness; the knowledge, to practise; that no man think himself to know any more then he doth beleeue, nor to beleeue any more then he hath a mind in his life and conversation by all means to express: that so, when the strict account shall be taken both of prince and people: of prince, for those many blessings which God hath powred vpon her person and her state, for the very cause of religion; of people, for that his more than ordinary love in commending us to the care of so princely a nurse, we may bee found the truly religious people of a truly religious Prince, & in the mean season so led the life of grace, as that in the end we may be brought to the life of glory: which the God of glory grant us in the grace of his son Christ; to whom with the father & the holy ghost be all honor and glory now and for ever. Amen.   

❧ A SERMON of the difference of Good and evil. Preached before queen Elizabeth, at Whitehall in Lent. 1596.  Esa. 5.20. 
Woe bee unto them that call good evil, and evil good.  
TO bring the voice of Woe into the house of Peace, and in the daies of security to sound out the severity of God his judgements; I would it were as pleasing as it is necessary, that so it might be as welcome as it is wholesome. But the nature of man, as it doth not well savour or relish the things that are of God, 
1. Cor. 2.14.  so can it no way endure the sharpness of the best remedies; especially in the cure of that incurable disease of the soul, the mother of all both error and sin, Opinion, which though shee search after good but in shows, and truth but in probabilities; doth yet in the wantonness of her conceit presume to make every thing of every thing, and so evil of good and good of evil. Yet in as much as the many woes which the Prophet in this place denounceth, against the many and crying sins of Iuda and jerusalem, as namely, Woe be to them that join house to house and lay field to field, vers. 8; and woe be to them that rise early to follow drunkenness, vers. 11; and woe be unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with cart-ropes, vers. 18; and woe be to them that are wise in their own eyes, vers. 21; and woe be to them which justify the wicked for reward, vers. 23; and( as we haue in these words) Woe bee unto them that call good evil, and evil good; are but warnings, and so in effects, armings against that woe of destruction, which in the end of the chapter is threatened, by a nation that shall come from far, with sharp arrows and bows bent, and horse-hoofes like flint, and wheels like a whirlwind, and roaring like a lion, so to execute the judgements of God vpon them, as that none shall deliver them: I hope it will not be unpleasing to heart of that woe, which may deliver from woe; nor unfit that I strike at the root of that sin, which is the mother of so many corruptions.  
And first for the voice of woe, which flesh and blood hath no pleasure to hear, and such as are at ease in Sion, Amos. 6.1: and( as the Prophet speaketh) haue made a league with death, and a covenant with hell, Es. 28.13: had rather once for all feel, then ever be disquieted with the fear of it; though it be seldom denounced, but when the wrath of God is hotly kindled to proceed with rigor of justice against the outrage and excess of sin; yet is it an argument of the rich mercy of that God, who hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner; Ezech. 33 11, that he sendeth the sound of woe before woe; and in a longing desire, to haue the coals of his wrath quenched with the tears of our repentance, proceedeth, as unwilling to proceed against us; until with contempt of his patience and long suffering we provoke him, and as it were force him to iudgement. For though the axe be laid to the root of the three, Luk. 3.9, yet shall it not be hewed down as long as there is any hope of the fruits of repentance: though there bee yet but forty daies, and niniveh shall be destroyed; yet if niniveh obey the word of the Lord, and proclaim a fast, and the King rise up from his throne, and from the greatest to the least of them they put on the sackcloth, and sit down as it were in the ashes of repentance; the Lord will repent of the evil he said he would do unto them, and turn away from his fierce wrath, jonas. 3: yea, a sodom of sin shall bee spared, if there be but ten righteous to be found in it, Genes. 18.32: and though there be a decree gone out, that all the woes and curses which are written in the book, which was read before the king of judah, shall be brought vpon jerusalem and the inhabitants thereof; yet if she haue a josiah to her king, whose heart doth melt at the words of that book, and who will humble himself before God, for the miseries that are denounced against his people; he shal be gathered to his fathers in peace, and his eyes shall not see the evils which shall be brought vpon his kingdom, 2. Chro. 34: so far is the voice of woe, from either bringing or hastening of woe, as that if it work, as it did in niniveh a general repentance, it delivereth as it did niniveh from woe; if it find but a few righteous, or but the heart of a good prince, which will melt at the sound thereof: it will at the least defer & put off the hasty coming of woe, & so procure a longer time of repentance. And therfore howsoever they that dream of peace where there is no peace, 
Ezech. 13. vers. 10.  do wish to haue the pillows of ease & flattery sowed under their elbows, Ezech. 13.18; howsoever the rebellious people and lying children will say unto the Seers, see not, and to the Prophets, prophecy not unto us right things, but speak pleasing and flattering things unto us, Es. 30.10: howsoever Ahab will account Eliah to be his enemy, 1. King. 21, 20, and in the 1. King. 22.8, except against Michaiah, as one whom he hateth, in as much as he doth never prophesy good but evil unto him; howsoever the wicked son of good king josiah, when he hath heard but three or four sides of the roll or book, which Baruch wrote from the mouth of hieremy, concerning the calamities which hung over jerusalem, will cut it in pieces with a penknife, and see it consumed in the fire, Hier. 36.23, as one that could not endure so much as the sound of woe in his ears: yet as the heathen orator spake of civil remedies, 
Cic. ep. ad Octau.  that nulla remedia tam faciunt dolorem, quam quae sunt salutaria, there are no remedies so sharp as they that are most wholesome; so may it be said of the physic of the soul, that there is none so wholesome as that which is most sharp. For in as much as the diseases of the time, which like evils of long peace, do for the most grow by excess; haue not so much use of restoritiues as need of lancing and corosiues; if we will be fit for the kingdom, and ready for the coming of Christ, we must be let blood in the swelling veins of our pride, and haue the impostumes of our greedy desires lanced; the fat bellies of our gluttony must be brought down with fasting, and the body of our lust slain with true mortification; our hearts that are soaked in the vnsauerie pleasures of this life, must be better seasoned with the salt tears of repentance, and such as eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence, Prou. 4.17; must bee content to haue their diet changed into that of the prophet david, The bread of care and the water of affliction. Yea our delicate ears which lull our hearts in the dead sleep of security with the pleasing sounds of wanton music, must bee wakened with that voice of the Angel, Reue. 8.13; which is said to fly through the midst of heaven, and to cry to the inhabitants of the earth woe, woe, woe, as the most necessary music for the last and worst dayes. And surely as the best of philosophers said of our pleasures, 
Aristo.  that if wee would look vpon them not as they seem when they come toward us, but as they are when they go from us; it were impossible we should take pleasure in them: so if the woe that waiteth vpon sin were ever written in the face of sin, it were impossible that it should bee so much and so greedily committed. For if Ira ventura, the wrath to come, were ever in our eyes; and vae vae the voice of woe ever in our ears( as in so good evidence as wee haue of both, it is more then strange, that so certainly to come, is not ever as it were present with us) howsoever the boldness of sin hath lost the blushy of shane, yet would it tremble at the fear of iudgement; yea, it were impossible, that the most secure of sinners should sleep in his sins, when he knew that iudgement did not sleep but wait for him; 
2. Pet. 2.  and that it was vigilans virga, Hier. 1.11, a waking rod, that hung over him. And therefore as Schola crucis is schola lucis, the cross of Christ the best schoolmaster unto Christ, and the correction of God the truest note to know the sons of God from bastards, Heb. 12.8, in as much as iudgement must begin at the house of God, 1. Pet. 4.17: how may he be better persuaded, that in mercy he would haue us delivered from the woe of destruction, then when he denounceth against our sins the woe of correction? for with them whom indeed he hateth, his course is far otherwise, they go down as it were quick to the grave: yea as job speaketh 21. vers. 23, in their full strength, in all ease and prosperity, even while their breasts are full of milk, and their bones run full of marrow; well may they cast with the rich man, Luke 12.18, of pulling down their barns, and making them larger; and say unto their souls, live at ease and take your pastime, there is much good laid up for many yeares; when they shall scarce hear of hac nocte, This night will they take thy soul from thee, before they feel it: well may they feast and banquet, mary and give in marriage, as they did in the daies of Noah, when suddenly a flood shall overtake them: well may they feed vpon quails with the children of Israell, Numb. 11.33, but the wrath of the Lord shall bee kindled against them, even while the meat is in their mouths; for destruction shall come vpon the wicked, and he shall not know so much as the morning thereof, Es. 47,11. Now in this difference of God his proceeding with enemies and with sons, with the children of wrath and the heirs of promise, to being woe vpon the one before they hear of woe, and with the voice of woe as it were to woe the other to repentance, before the extremity of woe be brought vpon them; how can we but aclowledge in his just hatred to our sins, his rich mercy to us sinners? that though the lust of this age, not much behind that of sodom, 
Gen. 18.20.  do cry unto God for fire from heaven to consume it; though the oppression of this age, not much inferior to that of the giants in the old world, 
Gen. 6.11.  who filled the earth with cruelty, haue need of another flood; of Gods wrath, to wash it away from the face of the earth; though the disobedience of these later times to every kind of authority, equal, if not beyond that; of Core, 
Num 16.33  Dathan, and Abyram, deserve that the earth should open and swallow it up alive, though the ripeness and excess of every kind of sin do even long for the harvest; & it be high time he should come to iudgement, if for nothing else, to stop that blaspheming mouth of this mocking age, which presumeth to say with them 2. Pet. 3, 4, where is the promise of his coming, since all things continue alike from the beginning of the creation? yet had he rather seem slack, as some account slackness, then not haue a patience beyond all patience to make a conquest of our unthankfulness. Neither yet in this his long patience doth his wrath altogether sleep; as his beloved city is never without watchmen, which are to sound the trumpet of his wrath before it cometh, Ezech. 33.4: so when the rod of his mouth, as the word is called, Es. 11.4, cannot prevail; he preacheth unto us with the rod of his power, and either poisoneth the air by which we live, to bring a mortality and pestilence vpon our bodies; or maketh the heaven that is over us, to be as brass, and the earth that is under us, to be as iron, Deut. 28, that he may break the staff of bread, and bring a famine vpon the land: or, if nothing else will serve, he calleth some foreign power to execute his just judgements against our sins; least by being at rest from our youth, we should be settled like Moab vpon the lees of our sins, in as much as we haue not been poured like other nations from vessel to vessel, Hier. 48.11. For what are the strange apparitions and comets which wee haue seen in the air? What the wonderful trembling, and as it were shaking of the foundation which we haue felt in the earth? What the extraordinary inundations of riuers? What these unseasonable yeares, in the which the bottles of heaven, 
job. 38.37.  as job calleth the clouds, haue seemed to do nothing but weep for our sins? but so many though signs of his wrath, yet sermons of repentance, to deliver us, if by any means we will bee delivered from the wrath to come? that he may justly pled with us as he doth with his vineyard in this chapter, What could I haue done more to my vineyard, that I haue not done unto it? or rather as he doth with jerusalem, over whose unthankful disobedience he wept in the gospel; 
Luke 13.34.  O jerusalem, jerusalem, how often, but ye would not? Wherein our condemnation cannot but be just, yea, if we were made our own iudges, when we will bee warned with no warning, moved with no threatening, wonder at no iudgement, be humbled with no punishment; but so build our negligence vpon the patience, and our contempt vpon the long suffering of God, as that we heap unto ourselves wrath against the day of wrath. 
Rom. 2.5.  For why should unthankfulness presume of mercy? or contempt of patience? or despite of grace? What privilege haue any to think, that they may safely commit, and not be sure to receive the reward of sin? What reason to imagine, that because it is not certain when, therefore it may be doubted whether he will come to iudgement? nay if we would indeed make our benefit of the woe, which is denounced but for our benefit, we would be so far from shutting the door of our hearts to him that so patiently waiteth, and so continually knocketh, Rev. 3.20, as that with jerome, we would ever haue a sound of that trumpet in our ears, Surgite mortui, venite ad judicium, Arise ye dead unto iudgement: and because of his certain coming, the hour is uncertain, ever be prepared and ready for him; and in the mean season assure ourselves, that the worst of woes are laid up for us, if we continue not only to sin, but to delight in sin, and not only to delight in sin, but to boast of sin, and not only to boast of sin, but to justify sin, and so to justify it, as to make evil good, and good evil.  
Wherein it is much that the pleasure of sin should breed a pride in sinning, and the pride of sinning presume to justify sin, yea so far to justify it as to make evil good; but that there should be any so impudent as with them of whom Iude speaketh, to blaspheme the things they know not, and whatsoever things they naturally know in those things to corrupt themselves, & so to make good itself evil, is most unworthy I do not say such as bear the name of Christians, but even such as bear the shape of men. Yet is there no way for any to make evil, good, except they first make good, evil. For when rectum as the philosopher teacheth est regula sui & obliqui, right is the rule both of right and crooked; it is impossible for wickedness to bring the liberty of evil, unless it first pervert the rules of good. In which point it were beyond all credit, if it did not offer itself to all eyes, how many sleights they witless witty, and learnedly unlearned age hath devised to make the rules of good and evil like that leaden rule of Lesbia, pliable to purposes, and to serve turns: how many pleas injustice hath found out to justify itself out of just laws; how many shadows ungodliness to shrowded itself under the law of God: not that true and good are not every way so like themselves, as that nothing can bee directly concluded but true out of true, and good out of good; but because the self liking of opinion doth blind even the eye of reason, and make lying spirits to invent as many glosses to corrupt the text of truth, as quirking heads haue found cases to pervert the good meaning of just laws. Which are those Funes mendacij( as the Prophet calleth them a little before) the cords of vanity or lying, 
Es. 5.18.  wherewith the wicked draw on their iniquity: not that there is in them so much as the strength of cords, if by the law of God we make a true trial how far they are able to hold; but because their strength is in the weakness of such as assent unto them, and they prove not onely the cords of vanity, but the cart-ropes of sin, to such as err in them or rather strive to err in them. For I do not take it, that they simply err, who( as Chrysostome noteth) vt liberius peccent libenter ignorant, that they may freely sin, are willingly ignorant, and think themselves safe in their league with death and their covenant with hell, as long as they haue made falsehood their refuge, and are hide under vanity, Esa. 28.15; yet what are all the quirks of wit, and the fallacies of skill, wherewith the wicked arm themselves against the truth, and wherein they seek a protection against the laws of good, 
Genes. 3.7.  but the fig leaves of Adam, which whither in the gathering, and rather shadow the light in our eyes, then any way alter it in itself? when men will presume to make absolutely forbidden, but in a respect unlawful, 
Psal. 15.5.  as onely biting usury in the case of usury; 
1. Cor. 7.26.  and respectively inconvenient, absolutely unlawful, as marriage in some persons: when covetousness will be an infidel to heap up it knoweth not for whom, because the world adjudgeth him worse then an infidel that doth not provide for his own: 
1. Tim. 5.8.  when libertines will stretch the liberty of the gospel, to shake off the yoke of all authority, and by the deceitfulness of comparison wrest that rule of truth, 
Act. 4.19.  that wee must rather obey God then man, to make an opposition between such duties as may stand together, if the one be subordinat unto the other: when the simplicity of believing is drawn to a subtlety of arguing, and out of our dispositions wee frame our positions, and so in the things that we affect, we imagine every probability to be a demonstration, whereas in the things which we affect not, we flatter ourselves, that no demonstration hath the strength of a probability. But admit that we were not so happy in the written word of God, which is the light of all truth, and the rule of all good, and the life of all laws, as that in such evidence, no man may pled the ignorance of good and evil; yet were there enough in the natural law of man his reason to condemn us for either perverting or confounding the nature of good and evil. The Gentiles, saith the Apostle, Rom. 2.14, do by nature the things contained in the law, and having not the law are a law unto themselves, in as much, as the effect of the law is written in their hearts. And though that high and saving mystery of God in Christ, bee above the reach of mans either reason or conceit; yet doth reason bring us by degrees, to a power above all other powers, and therefore above all other things to be worshipped. Which power in as much as it findeth for the end to bee infinitely good, for the order of his working to be infinitely wise, it farther gathereth that for his goodness he is to be worshipped with love, and for his wisdom he is to be worshipped after his own manner. Which proveth them not onely irreligious but unreasonable creatures, who do not aclowledge first, that there is a God, secondly, that he is to be worshipped, thirdly, that he is to be worshipped after his own manner. But the light of reason is far greater in our moral and civil duties, as having such principles as carry our consents as soon as we hear them, and to which the spirit of God hath added authority in giuing them authority in the Scripture. To note but one for all, out of that principle of reason that the greater good is to bee chosen before the less, the Apostle 2. Cor. 4.17, concludeth, that things eternal are to be preferred before things temporal; and our saviour, Matth. 16.26, that it is no gain for a man to win the whole world, with the loss of his own soul. Out of which and many other of that kind, may reason itself, if it will be but itself, gather that there is a constant nature of good and evil, and not onely a bare opinion or consent, as this or that nation hath at any time made this or that good or evil. In dead it cannot be denied but that the general rules of good and evil are in reason so plain, as that they carry our consents without any farther proof of them: but all the difficulty is in our several cases and particular actions; whereby it is come to pass, that as one said of the controversies of religion, That though the grounds were true, yet the questions had made it rem ingeniosam esse Christianum, a matter of great wit to be a Christian: so though the rules of good and evil bee plainly true, yet good and evil actions do stand vpon so many circumstances, as that it is a matter of great wisdom to be a good Christian. Howbeit even in this behalf haue we a good help, and that within us, to level every action of ours to the rule, to wit, that incorrupt both witness and judge of all our actions the conscience of good and evil; which to study to fly, is the way to find; and against which, it is a betraying of ourselves to use sophistry; whose waking eye doth never sleep, but even then when it cannot persuade with the reason of good, will yet torment with the terror of evil, and make them that live the most tragical lives, to aclowledge the truth of that tragical voice, Video melioraproboque deteriora sequor, 
Medea ovid. Metam.  I never do so evil, but I see how I might do better. Wherein if yet any will be so curious as to ask why in so good evidence of reason, so incorrupt a judge as Conscience, for the nature of good and evil, so many men in their actions do, so many nations in their laws haue madè good evil and evil good? it must needs be said, that they err, and that in iudgement; which it is easy to do, when either the serpent that beguiled eve with his subtlety, 2. Cor. 11.3, doth corrupt our minds with a greater love of a less good, or with a private respect of our own profit; or when the hastiness of our wils preventeth our more considerat advice of sound reason, as it did in the Apostles, Luke 9.54, who no sooner saw what they liked not, but forthwith were desirous of fire from heaven: or when the custom of evil doth harden our hearts; as it did the hearts of the Iewes, that in seeing they saw, 
Mat. 13.14.  and did not perceive; and in hearing they heard, and did not understand. For howsoever sin beginneth in the buds of infirmity, and by little and little stealeth to the twigs of negligence, if once the tyranny of custom overtake it; it groweth to be the stout three of contempt, which will rather break then bend to any kind of instruction. Neither onely doth that tyrant custom, harden the hart like an adamant, Zach. 7.12, and stiffen the neck with sinews of iron, and make the forehead of brass to be ashamed of nothing, Es. 48.4, but robbeth the mind also( I know not whether in a more secret or just iudgement of God) of the gift of understanding; and they think not amiss that think this custom of evil to be that hot iron which seareth the conscience, 1. Tim. 4.2, that it can haue no sense of good and evil. And in this case when custom hath blinded the eye of reason, and seared the conscience of good and evil; what can be truly good? what can bee truly evil unto us? nay, how can it be, but that there grow a manifest confusion both of good and evil; when the generality of sin may excuse it, and the custom of sin defend it, and the authority of sinners give authority unto it? And yet who is he that doth not think every thing safely done that is done commonly, and lawfully done that is done by prescription, and justly done, that is done by example. For wherein do the wicked imagine themselves to haue so safe a protection, as when they do as the most do? when the generality of swearing hath made it nothing to take the name of the Lord in vain; and the common fashion of courting, nothing to lay siege to any womans chastity; when company will excuse all the faults of good fellowship; and the multitude of fantastical, make good the pride of all fashions: and though we may not follow a multitude to do evil, Exod, 23.2, yet we flatter ourselves, that the sin is the less, the more commit it. But that which generality will but excuse, that will custom defend, and think that time hath gotten a right to do it. The world is hardly weaned from old evils, and many in most things account it a safe plea, They were not the first that did so. This custom, hath made nothing sacrilege in the spoil of one Church, nothing simony in the sale of Church livings; this custom, maketh every thing lawful that hath but one president; and the most to presume, that whatsoever hath been done, may be done, though it be worse done than ever it hath been. But then doth sin most lift up her head, when shee hath authority to give her countenance; when she is armed with power to break laws, and so guarded with Scandalum magnatum, that famed if self shall not dare to whisper a truth against it; when mighty men will presume to do those things by their places which for their places they should less do then others; and in defence of their actions haue as good counsel about them as that of the Nobles of Persia to cambyses; that though there were no direct law whereby he might marry his own sister, 
Herodotus.  yet there was law enough whereby he might do what he listed. Which is the truest sign of a declining state, when such as excel in place do not excel in virtue, but by the nobility of their birth, and the authority of their places make good their vices, when their lives are drawn into examples, and their examples into rules, and whole states corrupted by them; when vertuè hath no grace to spring under them, and he that refraineth from evil maketh himself but a pray, Es. 59.15: When flattery will justify them in the worst of their ways, and verify that of them which Seneca sometime partially spake of his friend Cato, obiecit aeliquis ebrietatem Catoni? citius efficiet crimen honestum quam turpem Catonem: object whosoever will whatsoever he will against authority, he shall sooner get authority to the thing objected then disgrace authority. How much the greater burden, is laid vpon the shoulders of all in authority; that since their places do in a maner make good whatsoever they are, they bee no other then becomes their places; that since their lives are drawn into examples, & their examples into rules, they be examples of nothing but good: and above all, that they neither flatter nor suffer themselves to be flattered in their evil ways, least they bee carried away with that tyranny of opinion to think their will reason, and their pleasure right. For if once overweening opinion possess either public or private persons, it leaveth no ear for any persuasion, it forceth not onely rules to her purpose, but reason to her service, and ever endeth in that conclusion, non persuadebis etiansi persuaseris, she will not bee persuaded though shee bee persuaded. Which is that fatal misery of these latter times, in the which the plenty not of sound but superficial knowledge, hath made nothing good but in show, nothing true but in opinion; when for iustice between kingdom and kingdom, the better sword hath eaten up the law of nations; and for iustice between people of the same government, laws are lost in the cases of the law: and for the preserver of all both truth and iustice, religion itself is in a manner lost in the questions of religion. For who can deny that to bee true of our times which hilary wrote of his, to nunc fides existere quot voluntates, & tot doctrinas quot mores; dum aut ita scribuntur vt volumus, aut ita vt volumus intelliguntur, that there are so many religions as opinions, so many doctrines as manners of men, when either we writ them as we list, or as we list we understand them: not that we haue not one and the same, a certain rule, the word written, which rightly understood will ever hold us in the unity of faith; but because in the wantonness of this disputing age, we rather look into it with the eye of curiosity, then hearken unto it with the ear of obedience, and rather bring sharp wits, then good minds to the understanding of the scripture; and to haue religion rather flying amongst us in the air of opinions, then settled in our hearts, with any truth of persuasion. And hereof it is that the Church of Christ which should bee the pillar of truth, 
1. Tim. 3.15.  and the school of goodness, is made a sea of contention, while men that should fetch their opinions from the word, do come with prejudicate opinions unto the word, and flatter themselves it ever soundeth as they think; 
Rom. 12.3.  who if they would once bee wise unto sobriety, and acknowledging the true grounds, agree in the right issues; the conclusions of peace would necessary follow. But flesh and blood which is blind in the best things, can yet foresee thus much, that the liberty of looseness must bee taken away if the questions of religion were once ended: and that there could bee no pretence to make their evil, good, if there were no exception against the rule of goodness: and therefore as ages haue increased in evil, so haue they multiplied their evil opinions of the truth: and if there were nothing else, it were enough to prove this to be the worst of ages, because it hath brought forth the worst of opinions, if it may be called an opinion, and not rather a desperat madness that presumeth to call the grounds of all truth in question. For howsoever many heresies haue been the patrons of many sins, as the Anabaptists of disobedience to lawful magistrates; Ochinus and his followers of the plurality, the Nicholaitans of the community of wives; yet was there never any that made all evil, good, but that of atheism: in the which, as in the bottomless pit of all evil, all both errors & heresies do loose themselves. And to that depth of impiety, what can be evil when nothing is good? what can be a sin when nothing is a law? what can he beleeue to whom the story of the creation is a fable, and the mystery of the incarnation a matter incredible, and all religion a mere policy? what can he either hope or fear, who acknowledgeth no resurrection, no iudgement, no heaven, no hell, no God at all? An illusion stronger then any reason would imagine possible in any reasonable creature, if the lives of many did not speak their hearts, and the heart of impiety open in some the mouth of impudency. Yet will I never beleeue but that at sometime or other their own hearts do tell them otherwise, how that soul of theirs which cannot like the life of brute beasts be satisfied with any earthly thing, must needs haue an end beyond whatsoever this life can yield unto it; and that whensoever in their desperate humours they open their mouths against God or against heaven, whensoever they borrow shadow of reason from vain philosophy or profane gentility against the creation of the world, against the incarnation of Christ, they rather utter what they wish, then what they are indeed persuaded; as wishing that there were no God, no heaven, no hell, no resurrection, no iudgement: that so they might the more freely sin, and never bee in danger to account for it. Wherefore it is not the too much learning, as some do fond imagine, but the too much licentiousness of this age, that breedeth either heresy or atheism; when wee maintain our opinions but to justify our affections, and could be content( many of us) not only that there were no God, but also no true rules of good, so that we might make our sins good. Which is the simplest sophistry that ever was devised, to err that wee may err; and to be glad to be deceived with an evil opinion of good, that we may deceive ourselves with a good opinion of evil. But whatsoever we strive by cunning to make them, good will bee good, and evil will be evil: and though mala sunt vicina bonis, some evils haue affinity with some goods, yet haue they a contrariety in their nearest affinity: and that righteous judge of good and evil, who cannot endure to haue evil done that good way come thereby, 
Rom. 3.8.  will less endure the confounding of good and evil, in as much as he hath denounced a woe against it. And this woe as it requireth truth in our iudgement of things, so doth it require truth also in our censure of persons; that neither by malice wee make good men evil, neither yet by flattery evil men good: especially if we haue the honour to be the ears of princes, and the credit of other men depend vpon the truth of our report. For beside the sin, it is an injury both to the prince and to the state, that either any worth should bee disgraced by malice, or any unworthiness smoothed up with flattery: to the prince, because majesty is thereby imprisoned within the blind eyes and the partial ears of other mens affections, and so made subject that misery which Seneca observed, vt omnia possidentibus desit qui verum dicat, that they which abound in other things are farthest off from knowing the truth: to the state, that the rewards of virtue are not open to desert, but shut up within the narrow bounds of their favour, who either cannot judge, or will respect but( as they call them) their own creatures. Which is the chief root of discontentment, when every man will think himself to haue a part in the disgrace of the most worthy, and suitors themselves will take it for no disgrace to see more worthy preferred before them. Howbeit in this case as in the other, the liberty of our times, hath brought all but to opinion, and made it nothing to be, unless we be thought: in so much as simplo virtue, that is, virtue without money or friends, doth endure a kind of ostracism, and either must live to opinion, or bee content to live in disgrace. Yet when all is done, truth must be the credit both of persons and things, and in the end will haue grace both with God and man: and though the sophistry of opinion carry all for a time; yet doth it carry but to that woe; the misery whereof of will at length bring all back to that it was; restore good to the opinion of good, and true virtue to the honour of true virtue. But God is more merciful then to punish our confusion of good and evil, with the utter confusion of our estate, and therefore before he sand the woe of our destruction, he denounceth woe to our correction; and though he may hitherto say of us as he doth of his own people, Amos 4, I haue given you cleannesse of teeth and scarcenes of bread; yet haue not you returned unto me: I haue smitten you with blasting and mildew, your gardens and your fruits did the palmer worm devour, yet haue you not returned unto me: pestilence haue I sent amongst you after the manner of egypt, yet haue you not returned unto me; I haue brought the enemy to your gates, yet haue you not returned unto me; nay I haue plucked you as a firebrand out of the burning, yet haue you not returned unto me: yet doth he not give over to wait with a patience beyond all patience, that at the least wee should at the last return unto him and make our benefit of the sound of that woe which he denounceth against the extremity of whatsoever woe doth hang over us; that being guided by his spirit, according to the rules of his word, we may make a true difference of good and evil, to the entire following of the one, and the perfect hatred of the other. Which the good God of all power grant us in the wisdom of his son, by the quickening of his spirit: to whom be all honour and glory now and for ever.   

❧ A SERMON of an heavenly conversation.  Phil. 3. v. 20, 21. 
Our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look for the saviour, even the Lord Iesus Christ.  
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working, whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.  
THere is no one thing that hath a beginning, but it is referred unto an end: and the end, as the wise man noteth, is the same with the beginning. The sun riseth in the East, and draweth to the place where he rose: 
Eccles. 1.5.7.  riuers come from the sea, and haue their recourse into the sea again, and generally, all the creatures of the earth haue their mothers womb for their tomb; they are butted where they were bread; bread in the womb of the earth, and in the bowels of the earth butted. As for man, though he dwell about the globe of the earth, and run a race of the like corruption, within the circled of the nethermost heaven; 
Coloss. 3.10.  yet seeing he was created to the image of him that hath his seat above the highest heauens; as he hath another beginning, so hath he another end also then the common sort of creatures; but yet an end, which is the same with his beginning, to wit, that he direct the whole course of his life to him, in whom he moveth, 
Act. 17.28.  and from whom he hath his being. Which as it is the perfection of a Christian man, to turn from himself and to return to him, from whom he hath, whatsoever he is; so doth it require that while we dwell on earth, we haue our conversation in heaven, and the life of this conversation is hope, by the which we look for a saviour, even the Lord Iesus Christ; and the ground of this hope is faith, by the which wee are assured, that he shall change our vile bodies, and make them like to his glorious body; and the reason of this faith is his power, by the which he is able to subdue all things unto himself: so that, if wee aclowledge( that which we must of necessity confess) the power of him, who is able to subdue all things unto himself, we cannot but beleeue the resurrection of the body; if we beleeue the resurrection of the body, wee cannot but look for the coming of our saviour Christ; if we look for the coming of our saviour Christ, we cannot but haue our conversation in heaven.  
And first, that we are to look higher than the earth, and to set our hearts with our eyes, 
Colos. 3.1.  vpon the things that are above; the very frame of our bodies, made to that purpose may sufficiently teach us; which by a special privilege is so ordered, that when other creatures haue their looks turned downward, as it were groveling in the earth, we should haue our countenances erected upward into heaven; not so much to gaze vpon the beauty of the heauens and goodly order of the stars, as in them to glorify the Creator both of heaven and earth. Which they that saw nothing, but by the light of nature, did in some sort point at; when finding( that which could not be hidden) this excellent frame of mans body, to the furnished with a mind which was rather in than of the body; they gathered, though in the clouds of their own conceits, that it was an heavenly substance; and thereby inferred, that the perfection thereof was the contemplation of that divine nature, which some of them did conceive to be the Creator, others imagined to bee but the governor of the celestial bodies. But wee, who by a better light, haue more truly learned, how wee were created of nothing to the image of God, 
Gen. 1.26.  and by the fall of our father Adam being made worse then nothing; how we were in Christ redeemed; 
1. Pet. 1.18.  haue cause, both with the wings of nature, and grace, to mount upward; as owing unto God ourselves by nature, and more then ourselves by grace. For in that he created us, he gave us ourselves; but in that he redeemed us, he gave himself for us: so that how much he is better then wee, so much more then ourselves do wee owe unto him. Howbeit, so rotten is our nature in the root, and thereby so dull, to conceive the things that are of God, 
1. Cor. 2.14.  that when we should be lifted up to heaven, with the wings of grace, we are as it were nailed to the earth, with that leaden lump of the old man; which by the Apostle is observed to bee so rebellious against the spirit of God; as that he is said to use the same power in raising us from sin with the which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead. 
Ephe. 1.20.  In which respect, he thought it not enough to lay the burden of our sins vpon his son Christ, 
Rom 6.4. james 1.18.  that in his death they might bee butted; but withall he begot us with the word of truth, that wee might be born again unto newness of life; and sent his spirit into our hearts, 
Gal 4.6.  to quicken our souls; which though they be the life of the body, are yet as dead without the spirit of God, as the body itself is without a soul. And therefore in vain do we seek to be lightened with the word of truth, unless wee bee also quickened with it, which is both light and life, and hath the power not to instruct us onely, but to convert us also, and to kindle in our hearts new motions of a better life, by the which wee may live unto him, to whom we are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, jo. 1.13: the coming of whose Gospel into the world is called, Mat. 19.28. the regeneration, because the world is as it were new made by it: and the effects of this regeneration are to turn the flesh as it were into spirit, jo. 3.6, to mortify the deeds of the body, that we may savour the things of the spirit, Rom 8.5; to crucify the world unto us, and us unto the world, Gal. 6.14; yea to make us partakers of the divine nature, by flying the corruption, which is in the world through lust, 2. Pet. 1.4; for therefore did he who had his seat above the heauens of heauens vouchsafe to come dwell vpon his footstool the earth, 
Psal. 148.4.  
Es. 66.1.  that he might draw us after him into heaven: therefore did he that was equal to the father, 
Phil. 2.7.  humble himself to be a seruant; that he might purchase unto us the right of sons: therefore, as Cyprian noteth, did he that was God, 
Gal. 4.5.  not refuse to become that which we are, that we might be that which he is. The generality of which point, though it be enough to ad wings to the mind that is most dull; yet if we farther unfold the particularities, they cannot but put life into the deadest heart, to think, that he, to whom al things were subject, should be born poor, 
2. Cor. 8.9.  that he might enrich us; 
John. 6.35.  that he who was the bread of life, should suffer hunger, 
Luke 4.2.  that he might feed us; 
John. 4.7.  that he who was the fountain of living waters, should suffer thirst, that he might satisfy ours; that he who was the light of the world, 
John. 8.12.  should live obscurely, that he might lighten us; that he who was the power of God, 
1. Cor. 1.24. mat. 4.1. John. 1.4.  should be tempted, that he might strenghten us; that he who was the life of the world, should die, that he might quicken us, and in his innocency sustain the curse of the law, 
Gal. 3.13.  that he might crown vs. Wherein as we cannot but aclowledge the riches of his unspeakable love, who loved us before we were, 
Ephe. 1.4. Rom. 5.10.  & followed us with his love when we were his enemies: so doth he in the abundance of his love require nothing at our hands but love again; not that he hath any need of our love, for what( if I may so speak) can the nothing of our love ad to the all things of his? but because he taketh such pleasure in our good, as that he accounteth it a benefit to him, when we benefit ourselves by loving him. Which should the rather induce us to this duty, though required of God, yet for our good; in as much as we do but love ourselves, when we love him; who knowing best what is best for us, requireth not onely that we love him for our good, but that we love him with our whole heart, as our onely good. 
Luke 10.27.  For though the love of God do in some sort teach us to deny ourselves, that is, whatsoever we are as of ourselves: yet are we indeed never more our own, then when we are gods; in winning of whom, we gain ourselves, and whatsoever we lost in our father Adam. Howbeit, we cannot be his, unless we be wholly, and only his; wholly, that wee seek him not with a heart and a heart, but with all our heart; and onely, that wee seek not other things before him, or with him; but all things in him. Which moved the Apostle in this chapter to account all things not onely loss, 
Phil. 3.8.  but even dung, that he might win Christ; who not onely hath the words of life, but is himself the well of life, and fountain of all goodness; that if wee will haue the spirit, to him it was given without measure; if grace, he is full thereof, 
John 3.34. John 1.14. John 8.12. Col. 2.3. 1. John 2.1. Es. 9.6.  if light, he is the light of the world; if wisdom, in him are all the treasures of wisdom and understanding; if help, he is our advocate; if peace, he is the prince of peace; if ioy, he is the fullness of true ioy: in a word, he is, and so we ought to take him, 
2. Cor. 15.28.  all in all unto us: so that, as jerome noteth, whosoever will leave all things for him, shall bee sure in him to find all things. Which as it is enough to make our souls to love themselves in him, and thereby to live, not where they are, but where they love; so doth it set a price vpon the world and the most precious things thereof, and either altogether wean us from them, or at the least make us no otherwise to esteem them then as they may serve us to the service of God. For besides that they are not to be name, though they were better then they are, in comparison of those inestimable riches which we haue in Christ; what reason is there, though we had no hope of heaven, why we should set our hearts vpon them? when nobility, the farther it is fet, the nearer it comes to the shane of Adam; when beauty is but the daughter of rottenness, and the sister of worms; when honour is but the smoke of vanity, and the wind of inconstancy; when the fairest buildings of the world are but heaps of ston, and gold itself but the dregs of the earth: when silks are the excrements of worms, and the richest in apparel not so clothed as the lily of the field; 
Mat. 6.29.  when crownes do but load the head with cares, and kingdoms are but services unto their seruants; when human knowledge is but opinion, and the wisdom of the world mere foolishness; when the present life is but a dream, then the which there is nothing more vain, or as the Prophet speaketh, but a shadow, 
Psal. 102.11.  then the which there is nothing more like to nothing, or as the Poet Pindarus compounded it, the dream of a shadow, when the mind is not satisfied with any or all of these, but continually discontented without them, and yet not contented with them. For alas, what contentment can there be in those things? whose goodness is but in show, and their pleasure deceitful, whose glory is as the flower of the field, 
Es. 40.6.  and their continuance but for a moment, which are gotten and kept but with vexation of spirit, and found by him, who beside an extraordinary gift of wisdom, had experince of them more then any, to be but vanity of vanities, and nothing else but vanity. 
Eccle. 1.2.  How much the more is the weakness of our nature to be lamented and the corruption of our judgements to be condemned, by the which we prefer the shadow of that which seems, before the truth of that which is; and for a momentary taste of earthly vanities, depart from the hope of everlasting joys, as being the natural sons of Adam, who lost paradise for the forbidden fruit; and the brethren of Esau, 
Gene. 3. Heb. 12.16.  who sold his birthright for a portion of meat: whereas we cannot but know that which we daily hear and seem to beleeue, that there is no nobility to a new birth in Christ, no beauty to the seem to beleeue, that there is no nobility to a new birth in Christ, no beauty to the beauty of the daughter of Sion, whose beauty is all within; no honour to the service of God, 
Psal. 49.13.  no glory to the cross of Christ, no riches to godliness, 
1. Tim. 6.6.  no treasure to that which is laid up in heaven, no clothing to the righteousness of Christ, no building to that which is not made with hands, 
2. Cor. 5.1.  no crown to that of immortality, no kingdom to the conquest of ourselves, no learning to the knowledge of Christ, no wisdom to that of the spirit, no ioy to a good conscience, and no life to a conversation in heaven. Whereof though we can haue but a taste in this life, because while we are at home in the body, we are as it were absent from the Lord, 2. Cor. 5.6; yet by the earnest of the spirit, which is given unto us; doth that taste so sweeten our souls, as that earth and earthly things grow loathsome unto vs. For hereby are wee assured, that our mortality hereafter shall quiter be swallowed up of life, because by the grace that is given us, while we are clothed with this earthly tabernacle, we begin to mortify the deeds of the body; and by that measure of the spirit which is bestowed vpon us, are not only lightened with the knowledge but inflamed also with the love of God, and so inflamed, as that in the daily sacrifice which wee offer unto him as it were vpon the altar of our hearts, our earthly and fleshly affections do consume away. For we may not think, as too many do, that we haue our conversation in heaven, if we do but think of heaven, and talk of God; and as Lepidus is reported, when he lay in the shade vpon the green grass, to say, Vtinam hoc esset laborare, Would this were to labour; so when we stretch ourselves vpon our beds of yvorie, and soak our hearts in the pleasures of this life, to say, Would this were they way to heaven: but the kingdom of God must be begun in us in this life, if wee will bee partakers of it in the life to come. For though we walk in the flesh, yet must wee not walk after the flesh, 2. Cor. 10.3; but if we will live in the spirit, we must walk in the spirit also. 
Gal. 5.16.  For what profit is it to us, that there bee promised an immortal life, when wee do the works that bring death? that an eternal paradise should be shewed, if we neglect to enter? that there should be appointed unto us dwellings of health, if we live wickedly? that the faces of the godly should shine like stars, if our faces be blacker then darkness? as it is well said though in the 2. Esdr. 7.55. We are debters saith the Apostle, Rom. 8.12; we haue received the earnest of the spirit, which even in making us debters, setteth us at liberty; not to live as wee list, but to owe nothing unto the flesh, that we should live after the flesh: alluding to which words, Saint Augustine hath a notable saying, 
Serm. 13. de verb. Apost.  every thing is to live unto that, by the which it liveth; what is the life of the body, but the soul? and what is the life of the soul, but God? the body therfore is to live unto the soul, and the soul unto God. Which life and conversation, that it might be the more familiar amongst us, therefore hath it pleased God to erect as it were an heaven vpon earth, and to preserve in the world, though not of the world, a household of faith, and city of saints, in the which, as in a school wee might be trained up to be citizens of that jerusalem which is above, 
Gal. 4.26.  and free, and the mother of us all. Which doth not consist, as some haue imagined, in cloistring our bodies from the company of men, and withdrawing ourselves from the profitable and necessary services of the church and common wealth; as though our affections did not follow us even into corners: for admit that if the vow were taken away, there might be some use for some persons of that life; yet is it the mind, and not the place, that maketh the heavenly conversation: as we may see by Lucifer, that fell from heaven, and Adam in paradise; when Lot pleased God in sodom, and joseph in egypt. And though it might bee said, and said truly, that an evil mind is never less alone then when alone: yet to take them at the best, this must needs be granted, that in flying but some occasions of evil, they fly in a manner all occasions of doing good; which is so required in them that are called to be saints, as that no man is to live unto himself, but every one to seek anothers good, 1. Cor. 10.24. True it is, that for the love of Christ, we are willed in the scripture to sell all that we haue, yea to hate our parents whom yet wee are commanded to honour, 
Luke 18.22. Luke 14.26. Mat. 5.29.  to pluck out our right eyes, and to cut off our right hands, and whatsoever is nearer or dearer unto us; but this is done in a respect, rather to teach us, how to use the things of this world, then how to refuse them; that wee should not more love riches then Christ, or more regard our earthly parents then our father which is in heaven; or more esteem the life of the body then the life to come; both which love may stand together, if one be referred to the service of the other. To which sense the Apostle 1. Cor. 7.31, doth not will us not to use the world, & the things of the world, but to use them as though we used them not, that is, to haue an other respect in the use of them, then for themselves; as knowing that we haue not here an abiding city, 
Heb. 13.14.  but wee look for a better place; and that wee are not lords, but stewards of the things which wee possess, and therefore to answer, not only for abusing but even for not using them, to the better service of God. For he that is glorious in his creatures, will be glorified also in the use of them; and though he will be worshipped in spirit, hath yet vouchsafed our bodies to be the temples of the holy ghost, 
John. 4.24.  and therefore dedicated to his service: 
1. Cor. 6.19.  so that to haue our conversation in heaven, is not to possess nothing, or to go out of the body, but even with our goods, and in our bodies to serve him, vpon whom our affections are set in heaven. For as the body of the Sun, though it keep his course in heaven, doth yet reach unto the earth with his beams; so though with our bodies we walk vpon earth, our affections must be carried into heaven, and so carried, not that they leave or carry the body with them( as the friers do foolishly fain of their S. Francis, that his zeal in prayer did lift his very body from the ground) but that they frame it, as far as the frailty thereof will bear, to led a life answerable to that above. Now the propotion that is required in this life, is resembled unto us in the frame of our hearts; that as our hearts are broad above and pointed beneath, so we should enlarge and spread our affections towards heaven, and draw them to as narrow a point as possibly we may, concerning earth and earthly things. For as it is impossible with the same eye, to look up to heaven, and yet to behold the earth; so doth it fare with the heart, that it hath no mean, but either it must bee wholly carried into heaven, or wholly carried away with the things of the earth: not that the spiritually minded man may not enjoy the things of the earth, but because it is impossible he should ioy in them: and therefore in the words next before, are they, who are earthly minded, that is, not which enjoy, but ioy in earthly things, said to be enemies to the cross of Christ, and to make their very belly their god: whereas on the other side, they that seek the things that are above, 
Col. 3.1. Ephe. 2.19.  are called citizens with the saints, and fellow heires with Christ; 
Rom. 8.17.  not that there are any perfect in this life, but because the Apostle in this chapter granteth them a degree of perfection, who follow that they may comprehend, in as much as they are comprehended of Christ. 
Phil, 3.12.  And therefore is the mystical body of Christ, which hath an head in heaven, and members on earth, not unfitly observed, to make as it were that image, Dan. 2.32, which had a head of fine gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet of earth; for though the head be of finer then the finest gold, yet are the members purer or base mettall, as they are nearer or farther off from their head. How much the more doth it appertain to every true member of this body, to stir up the grace that is given unto us, that by the assistance of his holy spirit, which in refining the metals of our corrupt nature, is of far more virtue then the philosophers ston, we may be changed as it were from earth to iron, from iron to brass, from brass to silver, and so to gold; that growing from faith to faith, from virtue to virtue, we may at length bee made lively branches of the true vine, & golden members of a golden head. To sum up all that hath been hitherto said, our faces are set upward into heaven; we must mount like eagles above, not grovel in the earth like blind wants; our mind is of an heavenly substance, it hath another use then the life of hogs, which as Varro thinketh was given unto them but for salt to keep their flesh from putrefying: the corruption that we drew from our father Adam, is taken away in Christ, who was born a child unto us, that we might be new born unto him; our new birth in Christ, though it haue a remnant of rebellion in the flesh, is yet assisted with the holy Ghost, that in the dulness of our nature, we may be lifted up with the wings of grace: the love that drew God down from heaven, requireth but a love that may carry us to heaven, & we do but love ourselves in loving him: the world & the glory therof are no such things, as that we need to be drawn with them, from that spiritual life, which hath more, & more true nobility, beauty, honor, riches, sovereignty, wisdom, ioy, pleasure, and whatsoever the heart can wish for, then is to be found otherwise; it is a debt by the which we owe ourselves, and more then ourselves to him, who gave himself for us, not that we should live after the flesh, but after the spirit; the taste that we haue in this life, by being of the household of faith, is enough to make us to loathe the things of the world, and not to content ourselves, with thinking or talking or wishing of heaven but even to strive to be perfect.  
All which though they may serve as feathers to the wings of our minds to make us fly the world, and fly unto God; forsake ourselves, and haue our conversation in heaven; yet that which doth chiefly put life into us, is that which I observed to bee the life of this conversation, our hope, by the which we look for our saviour, even the Lord Iesus Christ. For how can we but bee more then forward in the course of godliness, when we know we do not run as for an uncertainty, nor fight as beating the air, 1. Cor. 9.26. but we follow hard toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Iesus, as we haue Philip. 3.14, when we know we are begotten to a lively hope, 1. Pet. 1.3; to an inheritance immortal and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for vs. For albeit to live godly in this life, bee no more then we are bound to do, & there is encouragement enough in the conscience of doing well; yet I know not how it cometh to pass, that we praise the thing, but seek the reward; and stand more vpon the fruit, then the conscience of a godly conversation: and therefore that all hindrances might with more ease be shaken off, it pleaseth God to crown our duties, and to provoke us with the hope of that, to the obtaining whereof we may be more then ashamed to wax faint. 
1. Cor. 9.25.  For if they that prove masteries abstain from all things, & that for a corruptible crown; if the hope of worldly preferments and gain can make us rather fly then run, by sea and by land, and to spare for no cost, and to give neither ease to our bodies, nor rest to our minds; can we be less affencted to better things? that wee should less abstain from matters of less moment, when we haue not a probable but a certain hope, not of a momentary but everlasting reward, and of that value, that it cannot be valued: shall the vain hopes of this life, which are but the waking dreams of our idle conceits, carry us farther with the show of that which is not, then the lively hope, which hath an assurance of a glorious inheritance? Eph. 1.18. But this is the foolishness of our judgements, to be lead with the deceitful balance of the outward appearance, to prefer the flesh pots of egypt before the promise of Canaan; and the land in which we led a dying life, before the land of the living; whereas, if wee wait vpon the Lord, the strength of our hope shall bee renewed, we shall lift up our wings as eagles, wee shall run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint. Esay 40.31. For this hope, as it giveth us an edge, that wee should earnestly affect spiritual things; so doth it give us a back also to endure all things, rather then depart from the hope wee haue in Christ; that we need not to bee afraid of any temptation, as long as we haue hope the helmet of salvation, 1. Thes. 5.8; neither be moved with the troubles of this world, as long as we haue so sure and steadfast an anchor of the soul as hope, Heb. 6.19. For what can any loss be unto us, as long as we look for a saviour? not in a generality, as uncertain for whom, but for the Lord Iesus Christ, who having bought with his blood, the right of our inheritance, will not fail to come & put us in full possession. For how should we doubt, as Saint Augustine noteth, that he will give us his goods, who hath already undertaken our evils? how may we but bee assured that he who hath redeemed us with the price of heaven, is gone to prepare heaven for us? And though his coming in the clouds shalbe with great power and majesty, 
2. Pet. 3.10.  in so much as the heauens shall pass away, and the elements melt with fire, and the earth be consumed at his presence; yet he that cometh as a terrible judge vpon the world, will come as a sweet saviour to them that are crucified unto the world, vpon the hope of his coming. For if in this life onely we haue hope of Christ, we are of all men most miserable, 1. Cor. 15.19: whose whole life is a kind of suffering, and therefore are wee said to be nearer unto salvation, 
Rom. 13.11.  as we are nearer unto the end. As for those, that haue their portion in this life, and say of haven, as Esay said of his birthright, 
Gen. 25.32.  what is this birthright unto me? to them is this day so terrible, as that they quake at the mention of it: and though they bee without God in this world, 
Ephe. 2.12.  without hope in the world to come; yet can they not be without fear in this world, neither shall they bee without plagues in the world to come, their glory is shane, their end damnation, Phil. 3.19.  
Now that wee who live by hope, might not be carried away with the sway of worldlings, to haue no other conceit of heaven, then is written to haue been of Alcinous orchard, the pleasantness whereof, was so far beyond other orchards, that none would beleeue it before they saw it; therefore is this hope of ours grounded vpon faith, by the which wee are assured, that he will change our vile bodies and make them like unto his glorious body. A point of such necessity to be believed, that if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen; if Christ bee not risen, then is preaching vain, & faith also in vain, 1. Cor. 15.13: for this is the will of God, not onely that every one which seeth the son and believeth in him, should haue life everlasting; but also, that he will raise him up in the last day, John 6.40. And herein appeared the infiniteness of his love, who loving us non solum in finem vitae, said in finem etiam amoris, not onely to the end of that life, he lead for us; but to the end of love itself, that is, as far as wee were capable of his love; thought it not enough to give unto our souls the riches of his spirit, unless he endued our bodies also with the glory of his body. For though the union between him and us bee spiritual, yet doth he call our bodies the members of Christ, 1. Cor. 6.15: not so onely, but also the temples of the holy Ghost, and even in that respect they should not be subject to perpetual corruption. For if other creatures which be subject unto vanity do wait( as it is in the eight to the romans) when the son of God shalbe revealed, as hoping to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God; how much more are we to bee persuaded of our bodies? that since they are members of Christ they shall be restored unto their head; that since in their corruption, they are vouchsafed to be the temples of the holy Ghost, they shall put on incorruption, that as they are graced in this life, 
1. Cor. 15.53.  so they may bee glorified in the life to come? And this in some sort doth stand with the iustice of God, that since we bear about in our bodies the dying of our Lord Iesus: the life of Iesus should also bee made manifest in our bodies, 2. Cor. 4.10: not that the afflictions of this life are worthy of the glory which shall be revealed, 
Rom. 8.18.  but because he is a plenteous rewarder: and therefore as the soul of man had first a natural life, but to live in the body; so though for a time, it be separated from the body, that the corruption of the body may be done away, yet it is not partaker in the spiritual life, of the full measure of ioy, until it be restored again unto the body: 
1. Cor. 15.53.  whose corruptible( as the Apostle speaketh) must put on incorruption, and mortal must put on immortality, because it cannot be made partaker of the reward, which is eternal, unless itself also become eternal. And therefore is it sown in corruption, that it may be raised in incorruption; sown in dishonour, that it may be raised in glory; sown in weakness, 
1. Cor. 15.41. &c.  that it may be raised in power; sown a natural body, that it may be raised a spiritual body: not that the body( as some haue thought) shall become a spirit, but that it shall be spiritual both in knowledge and affection. The greatness of which glory, though it be hard for flesh and blood to conceive; yet to confirm our weakness, hath it pleased God in some measure to reveal it; and as, Numbers 13, he gave unto some of his children a view of the land of promise, and a taste of the fruits, that the rest might bee encouraged to possess it; so( in the 17. of Matthew) did he transfigure himself to some of his disciples, and in the beauty of his face, 
Mat. 17.2.  which did shine as the sun, give them a view of that glory which his should haue with him. And if wee did but enter into the consideration of those things which are common amongst us, we would think it not so unlikely for our vile bodies to bee made glorious, as that fine paper should bee made of foul rags, or pure glass of the ashes of fern; especially when we find, Ezech. 37, that of a heap of naked and dry, and disjointed, and dead bones, there were made faire and strong bodies, and life given unto them with a blast of wind; when we hear job wish, 
job. 19.23. &c.  That his words were written in a book, or graven with an iron pen in led or in ston for ever; how sure he is that his redeemer liveth; and, that when worms haue consumed his body, he shall see God in his flesh, yea, he himself shall see him, and his eyes behold him.  
But what should we doubt of this point? when as Saint Austine noteth, in rebus mirabiliter factis, ratio facti est potentia facientis: the reason of this faith is his power, by the which he hath subdued all things unto himself. For to examine that which he hath promised, by that which he hath done, could he create all things of nothing, and can he not work his own will in his own creatures? could he fetch light out of darkness, as it were out of a grave? can he in the womb of a woman, of a little blood, frame a body distinguished with so many and sundry instruments, as that it may go for a little world, and within the space of some few dayes add life unto it? And can he not restore the body that hath been so, to that it was? Can he, as Saint Austine argueth, do so much for us? and can he not do as much with us? Can he quicken us in the womb of our mother, and can he not revive us in the womb of our mother, the earth? Can he with the due of the morning and evening give life to the seed that is under the earth? And shall he not with the sound of a trumpet and with all his power, give life unto us? Can we of a little sparkle kindle great flames, and cannot he of our ashes, though they bee never so small, raise our bodies? Can we fetch fire out of the flint, and cannot he fetch us out of the earth, where wee were butted and kept as it were in his hand? Could Eliah and Elisha raise the widow of Zareptha, 
1. King. 17.23 2. King. 4.32 Act. 9.40. Act. 20.10.  and the Shunanites children? Could Peter raise Tabitha, and paul Eutychus? and cannot God, their Lord and ours, raise both them and us? Hath not the Apostle set down the form of the resurrection, how it shall bee done in a moment, and in the twinkling of an eye, 
1. Cor. 15.52 1. Thes. 4.16.  how the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God? how the saints shall meet the Lord in the air, and so shall ever be with the Lord? the power of Christ is so manifest in this point, that if there were nothing else, as Saint Augustine noteth, it were enough to prove him to bee a God. And if there bee no exception to be taken against his power, in that which he hath so faithfully promised; how can we but beleeue the resurrection? and believing the resurrection, hope for a saviour? and hoping for a saviour, haue our conversation in heaven.  
And these are the principal points of this scripture; which hang as it were the links of a chain, the one vpon the other, in so much as we cannot perfectly learn any one of them, except we learn them all; and we fail in all if we fail but in one of them. for how can we haue our conversation in heaven, if we do not look for the coming of our saviour Christ? or how can wee look for the coming of our saviour Christ, except wee beleeue the resurrection? or how can wee beleeue the resurrection, unless wee aclowledge that power by the which he is able to subdue all things unto himself? again how do we aclowledge God to bee God, without the faith of the resurrection? or how can wee haue the faith of the resurrection without the hope of a saviour? or how can we haue the hope of a saviour without an heavenly conversation? In all and every of which, if we examine ourselves, and the times in which wee live; at which end so ever we begin, it will bee manifest, that neither in our conversation, wee show forth the power of God; neither yet are so persuaded of the power of God, as that it doth reform our conversation. For if wee look, I do not say into the hidden corners of our consciences, but into those shameless abuses, which are openly committed, and in the eye of the world; who can deny but that the looseness of our conversation, proveth us to bee without hope, and our want of hope to bee without faith, and our want of faith to bee without God in this world? again, do not many of our best wits, so tie the power of God unto second causes, as that they grow doubtful, not onely of the resurrection of the body, but of the immortality of the soul? and thereby are not onely without the hope of heaven, but even without the fear of hell; and thereby haue their conversation not onely as though their minds were made of earth, but as though their souls were made of flesh? what then ramaineth, but that wee cast the reason of our faith vpon that power of Christ whereby he hath subdued all things unto himself, and in a full assurance, that he will change our vile bodies that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body; bee quickened with a lively hope of the saviour, even the Lord Iesus Christ, and so wait and look for the coming of our saviour to iudgement, as that in the mean time wee haue our conversation in heaven: which the God of glory grant us in the grace of his onely son and our onely saviour, to whom be all honour and glory now and for evermore, Amen.   
FINIS